Ballad and Feud

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 11

Ballad and Feud

‘THE Martins and the Coys, whose Kilkenny vendetta provides the theme of one of the better songs of that rather self-consciously old-time variety called hill-billy, were, as was recently unearthed, historical realities; and their saga is more or less accurate, since the last survivors were found to have intermarried. They recall to us one of the most interesting by-products of the settlement of America-the existence of the "mountain people’ -- communities scattered through half a dozen states, which still live apart from civilisation, leading a life closely approximating to that of the original 17th-18th Century settlers. Nothing quite like this occurs elsewhere in the overseas expansion of the English-speaking peoples-not even, says a cynical acquaintance, on the West Coast of the South Island-and emigration as often leads to a loss of traditional customs. However this may be, the mountain communities provide a living witness of what the old folk-song was, in the days before commercial entertainment. I do not quite know why one Should like it better; it repeats stereotyped patterns; originality is not its long suit-but some fair proportion of its fascination for us rests in its presentetion of a simpler and more direct culture, which seems the less burdensome for being the more remote. And yet, when all is said, these half-primitive villagers, in whose community few would really want to live, possess a secret of spontaneity of song which modern entertainment methods have driven underground to exist precariously among soldiers, students, and other amateurs of the unpublished. ;