Two more newspaper articles for the end Melungeon Heritage Month! I don’t know the original publication names or the exact dates, but these articles come from two separate newspapers. The first discusses the use of blood beads and grave houses. 🩸 📿 If you’ve read #themooneyedones you’ll know I got the description of blood beads hella wrong 😂. Blood beads are rosary-like strings of yellow-green or amber glass beads believed to cure blood borne illness as they are chanted or prayed over. It was a common practice among Melungeon communities where doctoring was scarce. The second discusses elder Melungeon women speaking in an unknown language while going to pray to the moon in cemeteries at midnight. 🌕 While society generally depicted Melungeons as “witchy,” we did indeed have practices that may have seemed odd or foreign to outsiders. #melungeon #mekhashepha #machisaba #genealogy #appalachia (at Indianapolis, Indiana)
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