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A review by ridgewaygirl
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake-Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington
5.0
"What about Darlene?"
"When she was really living right, she drank it," he said.
When she was really living right, she drank poison. What a peculiar idea, the journalist in me thought. But who was I to judge?
The story begins when Dennis Covington, a freelance journalist, is asked to write an article about a trial taking place in nearby Scottsboro, Alabama, in which a preacher stands accused of trying to kill his wife with the venomous snakes he uses in his church services. Covington's coverage of this lurid story is the least interesting thing in Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia, but it forms Covington's introduction to a little known and oft-mocked sect of Pentecostal Christianity.
Snake handling began, not as a practice of the people living in the Appalachians, but when they came out of the mountains to work in the mill towns on either side of the range. Confronted with an alien culture, they fell back on their faith, creating their own version of Christianity. The first episode of snake handling occurred in 1910 and while the churches that practice it range from the Florida panhandle up into Ohio, the number of worshippers is small. They also drink poison and handle fire, but the focus is on the snakes, the rattlesnakes and copperheads and even cobras that they collect, keeping them in sheds or even in aquariums set on the kitchen counter.
It might seem odd that this small, tightly knit community would open their doors to Covington, who is clear about his occupation and about his intention to write about them, often bringing photographers with him to church services. But they believe as strongly (and probably much more so) in their version of the truth as any other believer. They are willing to travel for hundreds of miles several times a week to attend services in small, tucked away churches in forgotten communities all along the edges of Appalachia. And Covington is respectful and interested in their beliefs. So interested that he becomes, for a time, one of them, like an anthropologist joining in the private ceremonies of a remote tribe.
Snake handling isn't a safe practice, and there are few who haven't been bit, many more than once. Some seek medical help, but most don't and most have relatives who were killed by snakes. The snakes themselves don't fare much better. Snake handling isn't gentle, and the snakes aren't designed to be roughly shaken and jostled. Few last longer than a few months.
She had a video, though, of herself and others holding their arms and legs in the flame of the kerosene-soaked wick. That's what she was doing one July night after she'd sworn she'd never handle rattlesnakes in July again. She'd been bit the previous two Julys. "I decided I'd just handle fire and drink strychnine that night," she said.
Good idea, I thought. It always pays to be on the safe side.
The problem arose as Gracie tried to handle the fire with her feet. She lost her balance and fell on top of three serpent boxes. "I crawled on my knees and got every one of them serpents out," she said. "My friends said, 'Gracie, you said you wasn't gonna handle serpents tonight,' and I said, 'I wouldn't if I hadn't gotten in the fire.'"
It all came to an end a few years after he met those members of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following. The rapid inclusion of an outsider into a group of only a few hundred people, many of whom were related, caused a certain amount of friction. The connection was broken, finally, when he was asked to speak at one service and stepped over a line by contradicting the previous sermon, by his mentor, who railed against women, saying, A woman's got to stay in her place! God made her helpmeet to man! It wasn't intended for her to have a life of her own! If God had wanted to give her a life of her own, he'd have made her first instead of Adam, and then where would we be!" Covington counters that by reminding him that, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared first to a woman, who brought the news to the remaining disciples, making her the first evangelist. And, with that, his time with them came to its end.
At the height of it all...I had actually pictured myself preaching out of my car with a Bible, a trunkload of rattlesnakes, and a megaphone. I had wondered what it would be like to hand rattlesnakes to my wife and daughters. I had imagined getting bit and surviving. I had imagined getting bit and not surviving. I had thought about what my last words would be. It sounds funny now. It wasn't always funny at the time.
"When she was really living right, she drank it," he said.
When she was really living right, she drank poison. What a peculiar idea, the journalist in me thought. But who was I to judge?
The story begins when Dennis Covington, a freelance journalist, is asked to write an article about a trial taking place in nearby Scottsboro, Alabama, in which a preacher stands accused of trying to kill his wife with the venomous snakes he uses in his church services. Covington's coverage of this lurid story is the least interesting thing in Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia, but it forms Covington's introduction to a little known and oft-mocked sect of Pentecostal Christianity.
Snake handling began, not as a practice of the people living in the Appalachians, but when they came out of the mountains to work in the mill towns on either side of the range. Confronted with an alien culture, they fell back on their faith, creating their own version of Christianity. The first episode of snake handling occurred in 1910 and while the churches that practice it range from the Florida panhandle up into Ohio, the number of worshippers is small. They also drink poison and handle fire, but the focus is on the snakes, the rattlesnakes and copperheads and even cobras that they collect, keeping them in sheds or even in aquariums set on the kitchen counter.
It might seem odd that this small, tightly knit community would open their doors to Covington, who is clear about his occupation and about his intention to write about them, often bringing photographers with him to church services. But they believe as strongly (and probably much more so) in their version of the truth as any other believer. They are willing to travel for hundreds of miles several times a week to attend services in small, tucked away churches in forgotten communities all along the edges of Appalachia. And Covington is respectful and interested in their beliefs. So interested that he becomes, for a time, one of them, like an anthropologist joining in the private ceremonies of a remote tribe.
Snake handling isn't a safe practice, and there are few who haven't been bit, many more than once. Some seek medical help, but most don't and most have relatives who were killed by snakes. The snakes themselves don't fare much better. Snake handling isn't gentle, and the snakes aren't designed to be roughly shaken and jostled. Few last longer than a few months.
She had a video, though, of herself and others holding their arms and legs in the flame of the kerosene-soaked wick. That's what she was doing one July night after she'd sworn she'd never handle rattlesnakes in July again. She'd been bit the previous two Julys. "I decided I'd just handle fire and drink strychnine that night," she said.
Good idea, I thought. It always pays to be on the safe side.
The problem arose as Gracie tried to handle the fire with her feet. She lost her balance and fell on top of three serpent boxes. "I crawled on my knees and got every one of them serpents out," she said. "My friends said, 'Gracie, you said you wasn't gonna handle serpents tonight,' and I said, 'I wouldn't if I hadn't gotten in the fire.'"
It all came to an end a few years after he met those members of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following. The rapid inclusion of an outsider into a group of only a few hundred people, many of whom were related, caused a certain amount of friction. The connection was broken, finally, when he was asked to speak at one service and stepped over a line by contradicting the previous sermon, by his mentor, who railed against women, saying, A woman's got to stay in her place! God made her helpmeet to man! It wasn't intended for her to have a life of her own! If God had wanted to give her a life of her own, he'd have made her first instead of Adam, and then where would we be!" Covington counters that by reminding him that, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared first to a woman, who brought the news to the remaining disciples, making her the first evangelist. And, with that, his time with them came to its end.
At the height of it all...I had actually pictured myself preaching out of my car with a Bible, a trunkload of rattlesnakes, and a megaphone. I had wondered what it would be like to hand rattlesnakes to my wife and daughters. I had imagined getting bit and surviving. I had imagined getting bit and not surviving. I had thought about what my last words would be. It sounds funny now. It wasn't always funny at the time.