The Happy Land Liniment A Work in Progress
by Saleem Hue Penny
If I found a healing tree in my backyard, and it grew some sort of fruit that was a healing balm for people to repair what was damaged, I’m not going to just harvest all of those fruits and say, “You can’t have this.”
If I have a cure for people, I’m going to share it.
—Tarana Burke,
Founder of #MeToo Movement
I left the South for the Mid-Atlantic, then the Rustbelt, then the “UpSouth” Midwest, to pursue higher education and to tic-tac-toe my way through undervalued professions.
Like a Sea Island Ring Shout, I’ve made this counter-clockwise journey seasonally, oft resisting the way the tide pulls me. Over a dozen family members have passed since I first left home: Tuckers and Reids and Washingtons and Gambells and Harmons and Walkers and Pennys… Family trees unadorned, ‘X’ marks on census forms—O’ these concentric circles—heartwood, sapwood, rings of growth.
Despite 3 degrees, 4 universities, and 21 semesters, only 1 class gave me space to uplift my elders. Methodic with microfiche, obituaries, and GIS maps, I earned an A– (a couple of Fridays of missed attendance), but that was thirteen years ago. “We still out here, Leemy. Don’t let another thirteen go.” Outside my office window, once-gracious ghosts have grown impatient:
“We each took turns sharing the same simple dreams.”
“Stitched them into a suit—try it on again, please?”
“We’ll hem the cuffs and mend the sleeves.”
“Make the best, from the scraps, our legacy.”
“Our bountiful Black bodies, how they bore so much.”
“Still, we’re here, hoisting this gold crown up.
“Lil’ young’un, our last wish for y0u, is to just look up.”
“See us?”
Praise songs are quilts, gently unrolled. They soften the pain of long gravel roads. The ghosts told my mother, Be patient after life. Showed her that time moves prestissimo swift, on a largo metronome. Sixteen days short of seeing birthday sixty-three, hands sanitized, double-masked diligently. Nineteen months since then have passed. Absent pleasantries, the ghosts perseverate daily, reiterating the urgency of searching my history. Modus operandi: mine for memories.
Many truths lie, mostly, in history’s omissions,
An unanswered question, recorded with intention,
Forgiveness is a reckoning with pain and consequences
Healing requires remedies, reimagined.
In reality, the future is always a dream.
A Kingdom where I didn’t think one could be
Emancipated Black folks, in a war-torn South, 158 years prior and
12 miles away, wading in the Green River—I too, felt most happy.
~ ~ ~
The public record of The Kingdom of the Happy Land is based upon a single 16-page book with no citations, written roughly 60 years after the Kingdom disbanded. Sadie Smathers Patton’s 1957 book (WorldCat Library, Local Gift Shop) tells the history of a group of Free Black People who journeyed likely from Chahta Yakni/Choctaw region (Mississippi) to Tsalaguwetiyi/Cherokee-East land near present-day Zirconia, NC [*References to Indigenous peoples absent from original text]. They established (circa 1864–67), developed, and sustained (until the early 1900s) a safe, relatively autonomous community led by Queen Luella Montgomery & her brother-in-law, King Robert Montgomery.
Patton’s narrative is situated in the Lost Cause framework developed by 1860’s “Ladies Memorial Associations” and Civil War veterans’ groups. It posits that the institution of slavery was beneficial to black and white people alike, the Civil War was merely a struggle for “State’s Rights,” and that legislating racial integration during Reconstruction was federal overreach.
When the written record erases, fails to imagine, or misrepresents swaths of families and entire communities, across multiple generations, it becomes a collective responsibility to re-create memory. I worked in the Green River Valley as a summer camp counselor at ages eighteen and nineteen. My senses were shaped by sunrise over the crisp river, the lolling afternoon thunderstorms, the early evening fireflies, the horizontal heat lightning, the whirring cicada cries, and the full-throttle of a distant tractor rushing to load the last bales before tomorrow’s big storm. I had no idea that I was merely twelve miles from the Kingdom of the Happy Land. I only learned of this history through Danielle Dulken’s recent essay “A Black Kingdom in Postbellum Appalachia” (Scalawag Magazine, 2019). Dulken’s essay introduced me to advocates such as local storytellers (see Ronnie Pepper, 2020) and historians (see Bruce Baker, 2003) who are both challenging the anti-Black and anti-Indigenous biases in the prevailing Happy Land narrative, and providing nuance, context, and humanity to the Kingdom of the Happy Land discourse.
I hope the ensuing explorations of history, ethnobotany, and biographical poetry encourage people to explore the Kingdom of the Happy Land creatively, analytically, and honestly.
~ ~ ~
“An outstanding product of the colony was a remedy for rheumatism,
aching muscles and bones, or other bodily ailments—an unguent known as the
Happy Land Liniment.” (Patton, 1957)
That sentence is perhaps the extent to which the liniment—a topical medical preparation intended to be rubbed into the skin with friction—has been publicly considered. Happy Land Liniment potentially existed at a dynamic cultural intersection of 1) Indigenous healing traditions, 2) African diasporic spiritual practices, and 3) Scotch-Irish folk medicine. These traditions exist largely through nontraditional documentation: almanac field notes, meandering folktale oratory, and front porch visits. I crave clean-cut, even indisputable, evidence. I want to be sure.
At age ten, I learned to make onion gravy with a few pinches like ‘this’ and half a scoop like ‘that’. My seven-year-old twins request a smoothie with lots and lots of chia seeds, but not as many as when you’re making our pudding. How can I expect to find a reliable ingredient list with standardized measurements and sequential preparation steps? This amalgamation must also be flexible (or universal) enough to endure shifts in space and time. Ingredients and methods must be able to migrate.
The original Kingdom members who journeyed from Chahta Yakni/Choctaw region (Mississippi) likely arrived with a different knowledge base than members traveling from the Muskogean Nation area (South Carolina). Several folklorists and ethnobotanists note that both freedom-seekers and emancipated folks traveled with their family seed banks. The practice of restoring and repairing familial foodways (inclusive of health remedies) constitutes an important form of Care Work. What insights and possibilities might be generated from imagining a specific facet of community life? Particularly one uplifting community wellness and providing financial sustenance?
Throughout the process of reimagining the Happy Land Liniment, I utilize traditional, linear research methods (e.g., meta-analytical literature reviews, quantitative measures) while also valuing multidirectional migratory memory (e.g., field notes of traditional root healers, retrospective case studies). Early in this endeavor, I wrote three questions that intimidated me:
(but) What was in it?
(but) How was it made?
(but) How did it work?
I decided to answer each. Affirmatively:
Yes (&) yes (&) yes (&)…
The ampersands countered the doubts & created space to proceed.
Method & Magic. Archeology & Alchemy. What may have & What might be.
~ ~ ~
I began developing a guiding framework for “re-imagining” the liniment ingredients. First and foremost, the liniment ingredients should target symptoms of “rheumatism”: a term traditionally used to encompass a range of inflammatory conditions affecting joints and leading to pain, stiffness, and difficulty in movements. Modern medicine delineates specific rheumatic disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Secondly, I only considered ecologically plausible ingredients. Essentially plants must grow at the specific Kingdom site (present-day Zirconia, NC, 28790) or within the relevant USDA Plant Hardiness Zone (7-B) shared with sections of SC, GA, MS, and AL. This broader consideration was important as Patton emphasizes the role of Reverend Ezel Couch, a traveling preacher who attracted new families to the Kingdom from as far north as Kentucky and Virginia.
Contemporary BIPOC “homesteaders,” heritage farmers, and foragers emphasize the importance of utilizing traditional, non-mechanized harvest and preparation methods when possible. Although teas, poultices, salves, powders, and soaks can be produced using these methods—for safety and simplicity—I do not consider internal preparations (i.e., tea). Furthermore, ingredients must have no documented toxicities or fatalities. Throughout this exploration, I used the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR) for Herbal Medicines (Medical Economics Co., 2000) to document contraindications.
In addition to “Do No Harm,” I chose to center care and sustainability throughout all stages of liniment development. Naturally, this prompted exploration, awe, and appreciation for the original stewards of these lands: Cherokee, Yuchi, and Catawba (interactive maps at Native Land Digital, 2021). These Indigenous elders, adults, and children were forcibly removed and paraded from their happy land, in the dead of winter.
The Native American Ethnobotany Database allows users to search plants by primary use (i.e., drug, dye, fiber, food) and Tribal/Indigenous groups. I also cross-referenced interviews and field studies of Southern Black healers: root workers, conjurors, and “old black belt tradition” Hoodoo practitioners. The decision to prioritize plants with documented use by Indigenous and traditional healers is a small step in restorative justice.
Taken together I identified eighteen plants that embodied these core values and methods. My list narrowed to eleven after controlling for plants with duplicative active ingredients/substances, as well as those with threatened or endangered status (US Fish & Wildlife Service).
~ ~ ~
“It helps to reconstruct the folklore around the medicine so you can fully appreciate its use and power. A lot of the things have folkloric connections and ritual connections we may not think about because in this culture, you only look at the medicinal properties.”
–Luisah Teish, traditional healer, in conversation with Michele Elizabeth Lee
~ ~ ~
A driving force of reimagining the Happy Land Liniment is understanding and uplifting the physical-emotional-spiritual healers and healing in my family history. I mapped ancestors on Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem framework, which outlines key roles for groups “in pursuit of equity, liberation, inclusion, and justice” (Iyer, 2019). Family-system pairings include Uncle/Storyteller, Mother/Frontline responder, etc. Likewise, I linked eleven of my family members with their analogous plants: Great-Grandmother/Sassafras, Grandfather/Mullein, and so on.
In the ongoing wake of my mother’s recent death, I feel pulled to first reconstruct memories of those most proximal to her, particularly the men who showed me how to live gently and generously. The following praise songs are for Melvin Harmon (one of her nine siblings) and Louis Washington Jr. (one of her three maternal uncles).
~ ~ ~
Melvin “Man” Harmon
1963–2004
Arisaema triphyllum
UNCLE/JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT
Harvest:
Roots: October–December
Preparation:
Traditionally Cherokee would collect turpentine from pine trees and create an ointment. Next, jack-in-the-pulpit roots were finely chopped, then smashed and pressed to form a poultice. After adding the poultice to turpentine, the mixture was placed directly on the affected area and wrapped with a cloth to heal.
PDR/Medical Notes:
Should not be consumed raw; toxicity is eliminated through dehydration. Too much internal usage is not only severely irritating to skin and mucous membranes, but can cause throat swelling, leading to choking.
Praise Song:
So many multitudes contained in one bottle rocket body.
Melvin (“Man,” or “Melle Mel”) was employed as a truck driver & owner of “The Gospelnet,” his very own internet radio station, until his illness.
Man was also employed in other professions such as a police officer, a disc jockey, hotel manager, teacher, camp counselor, and the US Navy (Bootcamp only).
You, with 145 bpm speech, eyes flitting like crossfaders at disco’s peak.
Your DJ logo, a bold pastel, center-aligned screen-print,
sometimes pink, or teal, maybe violet:
A strawberry,
being struck by a lightning bolt,
layered on a turntable.
No pithy tagline,
just 3 stenciled objects. Daring design. Confident choices.
~ ~ ~
The Greeks distinguished two types of shame.
1) Aiskhyne: disgrace & dishonor 2) Aidos: modesty & bashfulness
Like: “Fool me once, shame on—shame on you.
Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.” (G.W. Bush)
Like: Shame we don’t give folks their flowers
while they can still smell ’em.
Like: Shame, Man waited so long to get saved…
Like: Shame, Man suffered in silence…
Like: People, drained of power,
are dismayed & put to shame.
Like plants in the field,
Like tender green shoots,
Like grass sprouting on the roof,
Scorched before it grows up. (II Kings 19:26)
Like: Man crying? Shame.
~ ~ ~
The spathe, known as “The Pulpit” wraps around
& covers “Jack”, a spadix covered with tiny flowers
of both sexes.
In small plants, the flowers are male.
As plants grow larger, the spadix produces
female flowers.
~ ~ ~
Music remains the most faithful anchor in the mercurial muddiness of my childhood memories:
When you stayed with us,
I remember the LP cover that followed you, especially
The White Room by the KLF:
Two massive floor-to-shoulder-height speakers,
arranged in a capital T.
Basically, a cross to me.
Stark & stoic, foreboding & formidable
guarding the gates to heaven from 9 to 5,
the gaping mouth of hell from 5 to 9.
This, I think you knew. The risk and redemption in every needle.
The crescendo before the beat
drops.
Towering organ pipes. Nightmares on wax.
Hot tracks, chorus & hooks. Tepid hymns & choir looks.
My mother described how you lay in those final days.
The comfort you felt when wrapped & held close.
A double whole note. Her little brother.
A breve body enrobed.
The morning hospice removed my mother’s port, you, the ghost on-call
insisted: c’mon, y’all know she always left up out the house in style!
We chose her most treasured t-shirt: Sir Elton John’s FAREWELL TOUR
“This boy’s too young to be singing
The blues…
Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road…”
Decades apart, both blanketed in dappled sun, it sounded like, y’all looked
the same.
~ ~ ~
Rosetta “Zella” Penny
1957–2020
Symphytum officinale
MOTHER/COMFREY
Harvest:
Leaves: can harvest at least 4 times per year, beginning in mid-spring
Preparation:
Prepare poultice: gather 6 large leaves, cut into
2-inch pieces (include stems), finely chop,
adding ½ cup water, then a fistful of cornmeal or
flour, keep mixing until slight paste forms.
Prepare compress: place paste on folded cotton
cloth, place affected area on paste, snugly wrap
and tie cloth, add a second cloth, tie with twine
to secure. Leave the compress on for 4–6 hours.
PDR/medical Notes:
Numerous precautions if using leaves or roots for
comfrey tea or other internally ingested
treatments.
Praise Song:
I left home early, at age seventeen, for college.
My mother died too early, sixteen days before she turned sixty-three.
She saved all the letters I wrote. One looked to have been reread the most.
I scrawled it trailside while leading a five-day backpacking trip—a mere twelve miles from the Kingdom—my nineteenth birthday but a few switchbacks ahead.
In the letter, I pleadingly, almost painfully,
implored her: “Did we ever make you laugh?” Which is a far less vulnerable way to ask, did you know
my greatest fear was to disappoint you? That now, even in death, I still hold you as a barometer to
gauge how well I have prepared your grand-twins—for the storms. I’m trying today. I’ll try harder,
tomorrow.
But for now, can we just sit on the porch? Shell something. Shuck something. Peel something. Pecans, corn, scupadines. Watch the twins spin themselves dizzy for no real
reason—other than because today’s Tuesday. No? I understand, yes ma’am, I’ll sit right here.
Ok, a little closer. You’re right, the nurse you like said to save your energy.
It’s hard to say goodbye, that’s
why it’s so quiet in our family.
Dear Mother Comfrey,
The “all-heal” for hundreds of families; the “knit bone” who, in the
end, just wanted things to be a bit less broken. We tried together.
Despite adenocarcinoma traveling from roots, up stem and shoots
with a twisted swiftness shriveling every purple flower in its path—your
leaves, still, continued to comfort all they touched.
You gave the world too much.
~ ~ ~
Louis “Moose” Washington Jr.
1942–2013
SALIX NIGRA
GREAT UNCLE/BLACK WILLOW
Harvest:
Bark and pith of young branches: March–June
Preparation:
Prepare a decoction: peel (branch or stem) bark and cut into
small pieces to dry. Put ¾ oz dried bark in 2 cups water, bring
to boil, and simmer medium 10–15 min.
Prepare cold compress: dip a cotton cloth in decoction,
wring out the cloth, then apply to affected areas for 20
minutes at a time. Can also dilute decoction in a bucket and
soak feet.
PDR/Medical Notes:
Salicin is the component responsible for anti-inflammatory
effects. Exercise caution when used in combination with
aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) or other non-steroidal anti-
inflammatory drugs. Salicylates should be avoided during
pregnancy and nursing.
Praise Song:
“Moose will be greatly missed.
I worked with him for many years at Land Transportation.
He drove for us, he was a good driver.
He came to visit several times a year after retirement.
He was a good man with a big smile.
Hold his memories close and know that you are in our thoughts and prayers!!”
– Danna Lawrence, Operations Manager, Land Transportation
Obituary Guestbook, February 22, 2013
“Willow trees are tied to moon magic, enchantment, and are also known as a tree of immortality for the willow’s ability to regrow a tree from a single lost branch.
The fact that it sits on the borders of water may indicate an otherworld connection.”
– Dana O’Driscoll, Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America
Druid’s Garden Blog, August 8, 2021
I agree with Danna. I agree with Dana.
~ ~ ~
‘We Come Up’
Louis “Moose” Washington Jr. reflects on his late mother, Elsie Lee Washington.
Unpublished oral interview, Murraysville Community, Moncks Corner, SC
March 11, 2009
“But what Mama used to do, I think about Mama all the time with that.
We had an old house—I don’t know why they designed houses like that!
But she had to leave out the house, to go to the porch, to go into the kitchen…
That’s how the old people built them houses back then…
“As soon as I got out of high school I said, ‘I’m gonna put lights in that house for Mama!’
So then I went to New York and got a job. That was my priority.
I was gonna tear that kitchen down and hook that kitchen up to the house so she could walk…
It was freezing out there, man! Out in the elements…
“Many mornings when I woke up, Mama had that stove, a woodstove, cooking me that breakfast, red hot.
Cookin’ me that breakfast to go to school. I said, Lord Have Mercy…
If I could’ve afforded to go to college, I would’ve gone to college.
But they didn’t have no student loans, nothing, no food stamps, nothing back then […]
If your parents couldn’t afford it, you just didn’t go to school.
You just didn’t go to school and high school was the highest I could go.
Back then, I was the only one who finished high school in the family […]”
“When I got out of school, went to work, I bought Mama a TV.
My brother put the phone in the house.
Put in the wire. I put the light in there.
Went and bought her a gas stove, was in New York working, sending money back […]
“Told her I’d come back home, didn’t know how I was gonna put the kitchen back.
Tore it down, said, “Mama you ain’t going back in that kitchen no more”.
Old guy came by, you know, a table-tappin’ carpenter, helped me frame it up.
Then we hooked it on to the house.
“That was one of the best things that ever happened to Mama.
She didn’t have to go back outside and cook no more.
Didn’t have to chop no more wood.
“We come up—it was rough back then.
But we made it.”
~ ~ ~
As I continue to rediscover our abundance in the wilderness, I wonder:
How might the process of
re-imagining Happy Land Liniment
subsequently create intellectual and emotional space
to begin considering additional forms of healing?
There are praise songs still to write. Traumas and inequities to remedy.
There are elders still alive. My family is still living history.
Indeed, towering trees (Cinnamomum camphora and Pinus strobus), unassuming weeds (Verbascum thapsus), and Elsie Lee Tucker, our matriarch (Sassafras albidum) have passed.
Yet, the living thrive solely on swamp air (Tillandsia usneoides). Bark barely peeling at age 80 (Betula lenta) and not cracking until they make 200 years. Some twilights, I see my daughter smirking in house slippers, skipping towards the rocking chair in the playroom.
Knock-knock jokes through the window, face smushed in the glass: there goes Elsie Pearl Penny (Hamamelis virginiana) gifting the ghosts back their laughs. I look closer, her brow is furrowed—she forgot the punchline. Of course, the impatient ghost sighs, but this time it reaches through the pane, gently tucks a curl back in her bonnet, and says:
Baby, get you some sleep, we’ll still be here.
You got time.
Saleem Hue Penny (him/friend) is a Black “rural hip-hop blues” poet, arts educator, and mutual aid advocate with Lowcountry roots, single-sided deafness, and Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. The 2021 Poetry Coalition Fellow at Zoeglossia, an Assistant Poetry Editor at Bellevue Literary Review, and a proud Cave Canem Fellow, Saleem’s writing explores how young people of color traverse wild spaces and define freedom on their own terms. Birch bark, India ink, drum loops, and field sounds often punctuate his poetry. Connect with Saleem at
@huedotart (Instagram) and hueart.org.
Disclaimer: All identification, harvesting, preparation, application, and treatments are presented solely for educational purposes and do not constitute medical advice.
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