The Three Sisters Reside Amongst the Crooked Rivers

This column is the fourth in a series devoted to promoting cultural tourism in coastal Georgia. It was published in the Tribune & Georgian newspaper in Kingsland, GA and appeared on Wedenesday (September 14, 2005).

Storytelling is one of the great traditions of the South. When you think of writers spawned in that tradition, it evokes names like Hemingway, Conroy, Faulkner, Welty and Williams. It recalls humorists and commentators such as Grizzard, Hiaasen, Clower and Barry. When you combine the Southern penchant for storytelling with the lure of the water, you understand why so many sailors, fishermen, shrimpers, and shippers are colorful and loquacious.

Richard Owen Greer, the original Swamp Gravy playwright, commenting on this particular regional characteristic, said: “I don't know what it is in the Southern psyche that breeds storytellers: a past too painful to be told plain? A love of reading endlessly between the lines? A genetic talent for turning monotony into entertainment? Northerners tell stories in private and call it therapy. Southerners tell stories in public and call it swapping lies.”

Ever since humans moved from a Stone Age existence to farming, communities and cultures developed most prominently along rivers, coasts, waterways and estuaries. From the Sumerians to the French Canadians, the Amazonians to the Spanish Conquistadors, the key to survival and progress for all was the presence of water for travel, sustenance and trade. Coastal Georgia has all this – the water, the history and the stories. St. Mary’s, the nation’s second oldest city, with its historical district and its role as the gateway to Cumberland Island; Kingsland, known for years as the place to stop during trips north and south along the Atlantic Coastal Highway; and Woodbine, the former rice plantation, that became the county seat – sister cities created and sustained amongst the crooked rivers that wind their way through Camden County. And around every bend in the crooked rivers is a story.

About five years ago, local folks, intrigued by the stories of the “three sisters,” the cities of Camden County, got the idea that if the farmers and locals in Colquitt, Georgia could muster up a play – a “happening”– set in that hot and culturally stunted place, surely they, too could do something similar. Possessed of all the intrigue, history and cultural advantages of the region, these visionaries believed they could collect, craft and retell the stories of the area in a way that would bring locals together, create a new sense of community and also gain outsiders’ attention and dollars. The resulting offering would combine the stories of the Native Americans, the sailors, the fishermen, the traders, travelers, and settlers (gentry, and hard scrabble alike) whose lives converged in the moist arms of the “three sisters,” nestled by the flowing waters of the Satilla, Crooked, and St. Mary’s Rivers.

Next week, more about the genesis, travails and future of the Crooked Rivers’ Sisters Three saga.