Ocracokers (Languages and Literatures; 233) - Softcover

Ballance, Alton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807842656 ISBN 13: 9780807842652

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989

Synopsis

North Carolina’s Ocracoke island has produced a remarkably cohesive community of islanders. For more than two centuries, these Ocracokers lived in relative isolation, enjoying the beauty and battling the destructive forces of the Atlantic. In the past two decades, tourists discovered this “unique fishing village by the sea,” and the tiny island was forever altered. Alarmed at the dramatic changes in the island’s character over the past generation, Alton Ballance set out to capture the story of Ocracoke and its people from the unique perspective of a native.

Ballance accompanies the people of Ocracoke on their everyday activities — fishing, hunting, boating — all the time recording their stories about events and people that have shaped the island’s history. They have lived through hurricanes, and they remember their ancestors talking of the shipwrecks and daring rescues that occurred off the treacherous coast. During the many years when no doctor resided on the island, Ocracokers delivered each other’s babies and attended to their own illnesses, sometimes with local cures.

When Ballance was growing up on Ocracoke in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of year-round residents hovered around 500. Now Ocracoke is a major tourist attraction visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year. As tourism has flourished, the island has become less isolated, and Ballance discusses the consequences of this development for both islander and visitor. The modernization that accompanies tourism has provided many benefits for the island, among them better health care and schooling and more jobs. Nonetheless, the Ocracoke of old is rapidly disappearing. This book is a tribute to that Ocracoke and her people.

About this title

About the Author

Alton Ballance lives on Ocracoke and is a Fellow at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

From the Back Cover

North Carolina's Ocracoker island has produced a remarkably cohesive community of islanders. For more than two centuries, these Ocracokers lived in relative isolation, enjoying the beauty and battling the destructive forces of the Atlantic.

Reviews

Ocracoke, a small island off North Carolina and, as of 1980, home to 658 year-round residents, is a ripe subject, offering intrigue (early 18th-century Ocracoke was a haven for pirates), a romantic setting (wild ponies still roam there) and conflict (outside investors make land acquisition and ownership increasingly difficult for natives). But although Ballance, whose ancestors settled Ocracoke over 200 years ago and who teaches at the local high school, has researched his topic prodigiously and conducted copious interviews, he floats almost arbitrarily from topic to topic. Never does he challenge or probe, despite his stated goal of delving beyond the "quaint fishing village" stereotype. Why, for example, does an elderly woman from Ocracoke's one black family conclude a spirited account of her unruly childhood by stating abruptly, "I can't say that I really enjoy life"? A whimsical, warm chapter about mulleting and the technical skill, old-fashioned wisdom and physical endurance of two veteran fishermen is the welcome exception in an otherwise clumsy, cliche-ridden effort. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807842656
• ISBN 13: 9780807842652
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 271