Catfaces: Totems of Georgia's Turpentiners

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Catfaces: Totems of Georgia's Turpentiners

The turpentine industry was central to life in south Georgia for a hundred years. The work and the profits are gone now, but George Music, Jr. of Waycross is determined to maintain the face of his occupational legacy.

By Tim Prizer (Tim Prizer is a folklorist and doctoral student in anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.)

http://www.dailyyonder.com/totems-georg ... 06/10/2788

Wikipedia - The labor of turpentining was done mainly by African-American workers on camps throughout northern Florida and southern Georgia. There were many family-owned operations like the Musics' farm as well.

One such drive is George Music Road on the outskirts of Waycross, Georgia. A chute of dirt and sand, it leads into what feels like an infinite pine forest. At the end of the road – and at the center of this forest – sits the century-old home to three generations of turpentiners in the Music family. Close by is the mobile home of 50-year-old George Music, Jr., the only remaining member of the Music family to have worked in the turpentine woods. These woods and the old home are Music’s birthplace. He has spent nearly his entire life right here, listening to the sounds of nature and of work echo from deep inside the body of the forest.

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