Site Presented By
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008
As folks at Clay's Corner prepared for the party outside the store, hanging lights, setting up stages and roping off the perimeter of the gas station, one of Brasstown's doctors, Bryan Mitchell, drove by in his pickup. He was on his way to Debbie and George Heilner's house, where he would meet up with other members of the Brasstown Brigade.
Dr. Mitchell is in his 50s, has a large white beard and speaks in a calm, deliberate voice. This evening would be the first time he had formally gathered with his friends in almost a month. A little over three weeks ago he had been in the hospital, having his prostate removed; since then he'd been lying in bed attached to a catheter. Mitchell was excited about the evening's festivities, and about putting the past year behind him.
When he pulled up the Heilners' driveway and parked behind some cars, gunfire sounded in the surrounding woods. For 15 years Mitchell and his friends have celebrated New Year's the same way -- visiting Brasstown homes, invoking a German chant of prosperity in front of the residents and then firing off their black-powder muskets. "It's strictly done in good fun and goodwill," he explained.
By the time Mitchell arrived, most of the other Brigades members had already gathered at the Heilners. There was Dave and Eldon Peters, a psychologist and his son; Kelly and Kenny Hyde, a registered nurse and state trooper; Leslie Kerlstein, a doctor; Keri and Laura Young, 17- and 14-year-old sisters; and Dan Stroup, another doctor and the man responsible for importing this ritual from Cherryville, his hometown in the North Carolina Piedmont region.
Stroup was especially excited because earlier in the day he had spoken with Don Yoder, professor emeritus of folk culture at the University of Pennsylvania, who described the history of the Brasstown ritual. It came from Germany, and the chant was originally written in High German. Participants started at midnight and went to every home's door. Sometimes residents would request extra symbolic measures, like shooting under fruit trees to invite fertility or firing something symbolic out of a cannon. Some attendees even used to cross-dress.
"Folks dressed up crazy," Stroup explained. "Men would dress up like women, and they would wear bells. And kids would wear masks. They called them bellsnickers."
When the Brigades arrived at the first house, Tom and Patsy Hudson's place, they gathered on their porch and began loading their muskets. Each removed a ramrod from the side of the musket's .50 caliber barrel, poured a film canister of black powder down the gun, followed by a cotton swab, and compressed it all with rapid stabbing motions, which emitted a loud, metallic shing-shing-shing.
Stroup then faced the Hudsons and recited the translated German prayer. A section of the 33-line text read: "We have this New Year's morning/ Called you by your name/ Since Christ for you has paid the whole/ You shall hear the art of science/ When we pull trigger and powder burns."
Afterwards, the members of the brigade walked to the end of the Hudsons' porch and swung their muskets into firing position. They held the guns at waist level, away from the body, because the kick is enough to dislocate a shoulder. Smoke shot out of the barrels, sometimes in perfect rolling rings, and the blasts echoed through the valley.
Their next stop was the Cherokee County School Board fundraiser and dance, which Dr. Mitchell said catered to the old money in Brasstown. Inside an auditorium, giant archways of blue and silver balloons crisscrossed a dance floor; punch flowed from a cascading fountain; a DJ, surrounded by party lights, played light music. The host, Julie Nix, who was wearing an open-shouldered, floor-length sequined dress, mingled cheerfully with attendees.
The crowd numbered no more than 10, but the members of the Brigade offered to "shoot them in" anyway. They did so outside, even adding shots from a cannon. Afterwards, they brought their guns back into the auditorium and ate hors d'oeuvres.
A few minutes later, and a few miles down the road, the Brasstown Brigade arrived at Clay's Corner to shoot in the New Year's Eve party there. Nearly 500 people stood around the stage. George introduced the group. "Although we appear to be a motley-appearing assemblage of variegated immigrants, of common attire, lacking regimental embellishment, we are vivacious and [have] colorful spirits second to none."
The speech, complicated in its rhetoric and purposely anachronistic, escaped many listeners' attention, who thought they had gathered to hear loud guns get fired.
Get Salon in your mailbox!
