Appalachia (USA), 2005
“In 1990, I traveled to the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky. Lost on the mountain roads, I stopped in a store to ask for directions. Luckily, a man in the store knew where I was going, and drove me down the windy roads with the backdrop of the mountain slopes until we arrived at Viper.
As I drove down the dirty road to the Riddle family home, I was greeted by yelping dogs, chickens in trees, a kid squinting and carrying a gun. This place was unlike any other, and during the long day I spent there, I lived as if in a feverish dream, witnessing the rites of the Holy Church, where the maneuvering of deadly snakes and the consumption of strychnine serve as a measure of faith and God’s will. Here, family and religion hold people together. The violence of poverty sometimes separates them. The Napiers, another Viper family, were truly savages.
A sister lies in hospital, laundry was poured down her throat; a brother shot another in the stomach causing a gaping scar, there are also rumors of incest. The day I was there, a pig was slit, violently slit its throat. Then it was cleaned and cut into pieces. One of the Napier boys managed to reach it in the heart. As he gutted it and cooked the black thing that lay inside, black clouds rose and a storm began. I thank the nature of this intervention. Here are the photographs that were taken on that long, hot day.”
Anne Rearick
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
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