Ghost Excavator
Unearthing the Drama in the Mine Fields
by
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In this region of black and grey, amid the grime of coal dust, soot, culm banks, and abandoned skeletal structures, the ghosts stand out, especially in the snow. There is a certain transparency here. Everything is black and white, a "reversed" haunted universe: these ghosts are darkened shapes, the product of underground struggles brought to light at the surface. Here, they are easily "seen", and distinguishable. Their "routes" and "roots" are clearly marked. Blood-stained pathways , leading from the daily toils in the mines, are visible throughout the region. They make no color distinctions. In this liminal world, they are all variations of an ethnic red. This is a haunted landscape. The "spookiness" of the terrain carries within it a long, winding, migratory history, characterized by untold dramas of haunting uncertainities. The ghostly elements of ethnic traditions and lore speak loudly across the generations. This is an environment of ghosts. This is anthracite country.
Walter L. Dinteman, in Anthracite Ghosts, summarizes a lasting image of the region as follows (1995:5):
"Viewing these decaying ruins, isolated in their tranquil mountain surroundings, one can easily visualize the activity in a not too distant past, of the hard lives of the men, their families, the stables of mules spending their entire lives underground, the legend of the Molly Maguires, the strikebreakers, and people getting their heads bashed in"
These visual elements, framed in historical context, are the very essence of traditional ghost stories, and they form the basis for this excavation of the Mahanoy Area haunted landscape, one that begins in the mines, and continues into the mind...and back to the past...
Perhaps these ghosts represent the sum of all our lost memories and histories, those things replaced because we are so preoccupied with our individual struggles; or because we are not fully attentive to what's in front of us and still visible to the naked eye. Perhaps by not living fully our lives and remembering the lessons of the past, we lose a bit of our heritage, adding deposits, at the same time, to a culm bank of wasted opportunities. Are these sad skeletal frames we see in the landscape our discarded and abandoned dreams and hopes? Is this really, then, a haunted landscape, or a "night country" of daydreams untapped?...
What follows is some of what I personally encountered there in this "night country". It is a pilgrimage into my own forgotten past, memories that have been struggling, for many years, only later to be excavated, mined, and exposed to the light of the surface:
"Sir, in my heart there was a kinde of fighting, that would not let me sleepe" (William Shakespeare).....
You, dear reader, will have to make your own excursion in this "night country". If you go, please remember the following:
"Those as hunts treasure (like the black diamonds of old) must go alone, at night, and when they find it, they have to leave a little of their blood behind them" (quoted in Loren Eiseley, Night Country 1971:224).
These droplets of blood are a small token of appreciation to the blood-stained pathways of ethnic red made by those who had come before us, and who have left so many memories in their wake....
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About the Book
This book is a “ghost story”, meant to be read on cold, dark, windy, and snow-covered wintry nights. These are not “traditional” tales of haunted houses, but rather are personal narratives of “cultural hauntings” of long forgotten histories of ethnic struggles, and Native American beliefs. It is an image of a landscape (and its people) that goes far deeper than the mere surface manifestations of ruined and abandoned structures, and the “bits and pieces” of broken dreams and aspirations. This is a different kind of embedded narrative. It is an excavation that penetrates to the very “heart” of ghostly drama.
Experiences, conceptualized as a form of haunting, provide a framework for the recall of various incidents of personal memory and emotional resonance at specific places. This serves two purposes:
- It creates a “personal” landscape characterized by elements of “spookiness” (once dense forests, abandoned structures and mineshafts, “coal patches”); uncertainities that result in episodic “haunting dramas” (the socioeconomic impact of ethnic migrations); and “ghostly presences” (interpretations of these ethnic groups as a response to their physical surroundings);
- It provides a framework (in the 2nd part) for the analysis of other similiar haunted landscapes. A methodology is used that incorporates techniques derived from archaeology, ethnography, and performance studies. In doing so, it introduces a new multidisciplinary research methodology called “Ethnoarchaeoghostology”.
This book is a dedicatory salute, however humble, to the achievements and daily struggles of those who came before to inhabit this Mahanoy Area. These hauntings “fill-in” the blank spaces between the words in historical narratives, and thus gives the reader a different image of events in local and regional social histories. In doing so, they show that “greatness” is not measured by the content of what we do, but how, on a daily basis, we do it.
About the Author
Born and raised in