Annotation:Arkansas Hoosier
X:1 T:Arkansas Hoosier N:From the playing of George Mert Reves (1884?-1992?), from 1964 home recordings N:made by his nephew Merle. Both George and Merle were then living in N:Dennard, Arkansas but George had lived much of his life in the Oklahama Ozarks region. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel D:https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/arkansas-hoosier Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:D D2-|D2B,2A,2B,2|D2 DB, G,2B,C|D2B,2 A,G,A,B,|D3D- D3D-| D2B,2A,2B,2|D2 DB, G,2B,C|D2B,2 A,G,A,B,|D3D- D3|| D-|D3(D EG) A3A-|B2BG AG[G2B2]-|[GB]Bed B2dB|GGAG AGAG|D2B,2 A,G,A,B,|D6|| |:[A2e2]-|[d2f2]fd AFAA|[d2f2]fd AFAA|[d2f2]fd [df]e (3cBA|B([ee]-[ee])([ee] [e2e2])[e2e2]| faaa fed(d|Bd)ed B-AFA|D2 B,2 A,G,A,B,|D4- D2:|
ARKANSAS HOOSIER. American, Reel (cut or 2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCC. "Arkansas Hoosier" is from the playing of fiddler George Mert Reves (1884?-1992?), from a home recording made by his nephew Merle Reves (or Reeves). At the time they were both living in Denard, Arkansas, although George had lived much of his life in the Oklahoma Ozarks region. While the term hoosier is strongly associated with a citizen of the state of Indiana, the term also applied in past years to any man who was thought to be "a big, burly, uncouth specimen or individual; a frontiersman, countryman, rustic"." John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886), in his Dictionary of Americanisms (1848, p. 180), explained the origin of the word:
HOOSIER. A nickname given at the West to a native of Indiana. A correspondent of the Providence Journal, writing from Indiana, gives the following account of the origin of this term: :
“Throughout all the early Western settlements were men who rejoiced in their physical strength, and on numerous occasions, at log-rollings and house-raisings, demonstrated this to their entire satisfaction. They were styled by their fellow citizens, ‘hushers,’ from their primary capacity to still their opponents. It was a common term for a bully throughout the West. The boatmen of Indiana were formerly as rude and as primitive a set as could well belong to a civilized country, and they were often in the habit of displaying their pugilistic accomplishments upon the Levee at New Orleans. Upon a certain occasion there, one of these rustic professors of the ‘noble art’ very adroitly and successfully practised the ‘fancy’ upon several individuals at one time. Being himself not a native of this Western world, in the exuberance of his exultation he sprang up, exclaiming, in foreign accent, ‘I’m a hoosier, I’m a hoosier.’ Some of the New Orleans papers reported the case, and afterwards transferred the corruption of the epithet ‘husher’ (hoosier) to all the boatmen from Indiana, and from thence to all her citizens.
There was a long-haired hoosier from Indiana, a couple of smart-looking suckers from Illinois, a keen-eyed, leather-belted badger from Wisconsin; and who could refuse to drink with such a company? [Hoffman, Winter in the West, p. 210].
The hoosier has all the attributes peculiar to the backwoodsmen of the West. … One of them visited the city [New Orleans] last week. As he jumped from his flat-boat on to the Levee, he was heard to remark that he “didn’t see the reason of folks livin’ in a heap this way, where they grew no corn and had no bars to kill.” [Pickings from the Picayune].
