I never fulfilled my wish to attend services at the little African-American church in Tullos, but I attended services at the white church throughout my childhood. My grandfather, a Baptist minister, preached many sermons there.

On Saturday afternoon, October 9, 1993, I drove to the Mt. Pilgrim church on Highway 1226 about five miles from Clarence, Louisiana. Thus began the process of satisfying a life-long desire and the fulfilment of the requirements of an ethnology course. As will be explained later in this paper, thus also began the discovery of a religious process as part of an even greater cultural process and the answer to why an entire culture group moved, leaving behind no trace of their culture but a church and graves.

Mt. Pilgrim church faced east and sat in a lonely area beside Highway 1226, a narrow country road. Behind the church, gray clusters of Spanish moss dangled from giant oaks and cypresses and waved gently in the afternoon breeze. Beneath the cypresses, algae lay like green carpet on the floor-like surface of a lazy bayou.

Unlike the African-American church of my childhood memories, I found the Mt. Pilgrim church constructed of solid materials: concrete blocks painted white. It was about thirty feet in width, eighty feet in length, well-maintained, and had a new, tan asphalt shingle roof. Twin white steeples on both front corners soared toward the clear blue sky. Bright green indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor of a small foyer led to wooden double doors, the main entrance to the building. Mounted to a wall, a marble plaque proclaimed: Mt. Pilgrim B. C. 1880. Rebuilt 1948.

On the north side and slightly to the front of the church sat a neat, white-painted frame building approximately twenty feet in length and width. This small building, I discovered the next day, served as a kitchen. Also on the north side of the church, an open area about one hundred feet in width extended to the edge of the woods and, as told to me the next day, contained the site of an early African-American school. A cemetery shaped like an upside-down "L" lay around the church on the south and west sides and evidenced freshly-mown grass and well-tended graves.

The neat and well-maintained church and grounds surprised me; I returned home with a question on my mind: Absolutely no African-Americans lived along Highway 1226, so where did Mt. Pilgrim's congregation live? Possibly in Clarence, I assumed, but why drive five miles to church when Clarence has several African-American churches?

But I knew that shotgun houses, the homes of African-Americans, once lined Highway 1226. I recalled a conversation I had about that subject with a white farmer. I asked, "What happened to all those shotgun houses?"

"We tore them down," he informed me. "We tore down twenty-five of them on just my farm. There was so many black people on that road [Highway 1226] that they had five schools."

"Why did they leave?" I asked.

"They moved into Natchitoches," he answered. "Got free government housing."

At the time, the white answer made sense. And, on Saturday, October 9, it still made sense. I arrived home, called the pastor of Mt. Pilgrim, and unwittingly started the process of hearing the African-American and correct answer to the question I had asked the white farmer.

The Reverend Robert Williams seemed delighted that I wanted to attend his services at Mt. Pilgrim, whatever my reasons. But, he explained, he was eighty-four years old, confined to a wheelchair, and the Reverend James Johnson, the assistant pastor, would conduct the services the following day. He gave me Reverend Johnson's telephone number, and I called him.

The Reverend Johnson also seemed delighted that a white man wanted to attend his services, but he was not so enthused about his services being the subject of an anthropological survey. I had to explain my purpose in detail.

"What did you say you were?" he asked.

"An anthropology student," I explained. "I want to study the process of your religious ceremony. I'll sit in the back and take notes."

"Okay," he finally agreed, "we'll look forward to seeing you there."

"Great," I replied, "what time should I get there."

"Eleven o'clock," he told me.

I hung up the telephone, smugly satisfied that my plan had worked out and totally unaware that Reverend Johnson, I believe, had a plan of his own.

The following morning, Sunday, October 10, 1993, I donned the best clothing I owned, stuffed a five-dollar bill in my shirt pocket for an offering, and drove to Mt. Pilgrim. When I parked in the gravel parking lot in front of the church, my wristwatch read: 10:45 a.m. In addition to my car, the lot contained only three cars and a pickup truck. Not much of a congregation, I thought.

I nervously waited alone outside the church, and at 10:59 a.m., I opened the front door and stepped inside the building. I saw a large room approximately thirty feet in width, sixty feet in length, and walled with hardwood paneling. An aisle ran down the middle of the room and had rows of pews on both sides, facing west, toward the pulpit at the rear of the room. The gleaming pews looked brand-new and had fancy red cushions. New-looking red carpet ran down the aisle.

An open area about fifteen feet in length, twenty feet in width, and also covered with red carpet, extended from the front pews to the pulpit, which sat on a raised platform. A wooden fence about three feet high jutted out on both sides of the pulpit and ended at the edge of the raised platform.

On the floor in front of the pulpit, to its south and to my and the congregation's left, sat a piano. On the floor directly in front of the pulpit sat a brown table about three feet by three feet square. Two wooden chairs with red cushions sat on either side of the table, both of the chairs facing away from the pulpit and toward me and the congregation. I label these chairs "chair #1" and "chair #2."

Beside these chairs, to their north and my and the congregation's right, sat an identical chair, which I later discovered was called the "confess chair." The cover-term "confess" has both material and non-material cultural meaning. When someone places the "confess chair" out in the open area in front of the pulpit, it becomes a thing, a place. When someone sits in the chair, it becomes a state of mind.

Alivane Trotter explained "confess" to me. I interviewed her later that day on her job at Bill's Restaurant in Clarence. She was African-American, over seventy years old, and attended Mt. Pilgrim church for many years: "What is 'confess,'" I asked her.

"You go there," she replied.

"What do you do when you get there," I asked.

"You confess," she told me.

I thought about the Catholic confessional. "Do you tell all your sins?" I asked.

"No," she said with a laugh. "You say what's in your heart."

"What do you say?" I asked.

"You say 'I found Jesus in my heart,'" she informed me.

Against the wall on the north side of the room, to my and the congregation's right, sat the deacons' pews, three short rows of pews facing the open area in front of the pulpit.

Alivane Trotter explained the cover-term "deacon": "They take care of church business," she said, "and paint the church and mow the grass; things like that. Sometimes they visit the sick."

"Are there any women deacons?" I asked her.

"No," she said, "ain't nothing but men deacons."

"How does a man get to be a deacon?" I asked.

"He goes to the deacons and says, 'I want to be a deacon.' If they think he's a good man, they bring it up before the church and we vote on it."

In a telephone interview the next day with Reverend Johnson, I asked about deacons.

"They take care of church business and maintain the church," Reverend Johnson informed me.

"How many do you have?" I asked him.

"Seven," he said. "Some churches have thirteen, but the Bible says 'seven,' so we have seven."

"How does a man get to be a deacon," I asked.

"We have to have a good report," he replied.

"What's a 'good report,'" I asked.

"You know," Reverend Johnson said. "He can't run around, and he has to take care of his family. And he's got to have wisdom."

"'Run around'?" I asked. "Like drinking and stuff like that?"

"Yes," Reverend Johnson replied.

"What's the most important requirement?" I asked.

"Wisdom," Reverend Johnson informed me.

Against the south wall of the room, directly opposite the deacon pews, sat an identical three rows of short pews, the mission lady pews. Alivane Trotter explained the cover-term "mission lady": "They mission," she said. "You know, visit the sick and try to get people to come to church."

"How do you get to be a mission lady?" I asked her.

"You just want to be a mission lady," she informed me.

In my telephone interview with Reverend Johnson on October 11, I asked him, "Can a man be a mission lady?"

"No," he informed me, "a man can't take care of a sick woman."

Behind the pulpit area a room-like and indented area contained four rows of short pews for the choir. A tapestry of the Last Supper of Jesus almost covered the rear wall of the choir area. The interior walls of Mt. Pilgrim contained three portrayals of the Last Supper of Jesus: the tapestry already mentioned, a painting on the north wall and a painting on the west wall.

The only other pictures adorning the walls was a poster of white and African-American children playing together in harmony and located on the south wall, and an oil portrait of the Reverend Williams located directly behind the pulpit and near the ceiling on the wall in front of and above the choir area. From the etic, outsider, point of view, it seemed to me that the portrait of the Reverend Williams established his overall control of the church no matter who served as assistant pastor. The congregation could not watch the Reverend Johnson at the pulpit without seeing the image of Reverend Williams above and behind him.

After entering the room, I quietly sat down in the very first pew I encountered, amazed at the unexpected beauty of Mt. Pilgrim. I had interrupted Sunday School. Far in front of me and to my right, several women, teenagers, and a few small children sat in the first two congregation pews on the north side of the room. Five men sat in the deacons' pews. All the women and children were dressed in fine clothing; all the men wore suits. The poorly dressed anthropologist felt out of place. A man about forty years old and wearing a tan suit and a black shirt sat on the far end of a deacon pew. He spoke: "This is Junior . . . What's your name?"

"Junior Doughty."

"He's an archaeologist," the man I then rightly assumed was Reverend Johnson wrongly told the people around himself. "He's going to study our services and, later, tell us what he thinks about it."

That threw me for a loop because I feared public speaking. While I worried, Reverend Johnson ordered, "Come forward Mister Doughty. Sit with us."

The people in the congregation pews started waving me forward. I rose, walked to the third row of pews, and sat down. The Sunday School I had interrupted continued, an active learning process I soon discovered. Reverend Johnson, from his seat on a deacon pew, would turn to a woman and say, "What did I tell you, Sister So-And-So, that Moses told the Children of Israel?"

She would answer, and, if she did not, he would tell her again what Moses told the Children of Israel. He would repeat the process with the men and with the children, asking question after question, reinforcing the lesson he had taught them before I entered the room. After a few minutes, we all rose to our feet, and he said a prayer. He finished; we sat down, and a female child about five years of age started passing the collection plate around. It was gold and shiny and she was beautiful.

She had pig-tails tied with blue bows sprouting from her jet-black hair, and she wore a baby-blue dress with pure-white lace around the collar. She grinned from ear-to-ear when she reached my side. I pulled the five-dollar bill out of my shirt pocket and put it in the plate. At the time, I did not know I had interrupted the end of Sunday School, and I assumed I had arrived early for the main services. That's strange, I thought. They take up the collection right after the services start.

I looked up and saw Reverend Johnson now sitting in a chair behind the pulpit. The rest of the people in the room milled around, socializing. Realization struck me that I had donated five dollars to the Sunday School collection; another one would follow. Right then, I prayed. I had a ten in my wallet, I knew, and I prayed for a smaller bill. Reverend Johnson, I believed, had set me up for a double collection.

At that point in time, a clock on the wall behind the seated Reverend Johnson read: 11:10 a.m. The following is in chronological order by that clock:

11:15 a.m.:

The people in the room still socialized with each other; several of them stopped by my side and said they were glad I was there. More people started coming inside the church.

11:20 a.m.:

A sudden change took place. A woman started playing the piano softly and slowly, and everyone already in their seats stood and the socializing people quickly found their seats and stood beside them. Five elderly women stood in the mission lady pews, and four elderly men and a boy barely in his teens stood in the deacon pews. A man about thirty years old stood in front of chair #1, and a man about sixty years old stood in front of chair #2 .

I counted a total of seven women in the room, nine men including Reverend Johnson and myself, and twelve children aged from about four to fifteen.

I heard the doors behind me open, then the voices of singing women. I turned. The choir, eleven women aged from about eighteen to thirty, danced slowly down the aisle beside me. They had their hands clasped behind their backs, and they swayed gently from side to side, their voices singing and chanting over and over: "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord."

When they left the aisle, they formed two rows in the open area in front of the pulpit, and another change occurred. The piano started playing very low, and the voices of the choir became very soft while still chanting, "Praise the Lord."

Reverend Johnson, then standing behind the pulpit, announced the verses from the Bible he would use in the sermon. Suddenly, the piano and the voices of the choir increased in loudness and tempo, and everyone in the room except for the pianist started clapping their hands and swaying from side to side and joyfully singing: "Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!"

The choir, singing, swaying, and clapping their hands, filed into the choir area behind the pulpit. One row entered from the north, the other from the south.

11:28 a.m.:

Sudden change: the music stopped and everyone sat down. The man now sitting in chair #1 stood and read from the Bible. When he finished, he sat down. (From this point on, I label him man #1.)

11:29 a.m.:

The man sitting in chair #2 stood. (From this point on, I label him man #2.) In a loud voice, he started singing very slowly and very mournfully: "I love the Lord. . . . He heard me crying." Then he sat down, still singing, and everyone in the room joined in the song, including me. It was a haunting song--I can hear it now--and I had wet eyes and a lump in my throat. Over and over we sang the words crying and pleading.

11:32 a.m.:

Man #2 got out of chair #2 and got on his knees in the floor beside the table. We stopped singing. Man #2 placed his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together in front of his face, and started singing a prayer. The prayer seemed improvised, and he sang it like a slow blues song. It sounded a lot like John Lee Hooker singing "My Dream."

While he sang his prayer, everyone else slowly sang one phrase over and over: "Have mercy, oh, Lord."

11:38 a.m.:

Man #2 said, ". . . in Jesus' name," and got up from the floor and sat in chair #2. The room got very quiet. Suddenly, the piano started playing very slowly, and the pianist started singing. Everyone else sang along with the pianist: "I've found a savior; he's sweet I know."

11:41 a.m.:

The "found a savior" song ended, and the piano played a louder and slightly faster song. The choir suddenly stood. Swaying side to side, they sang, "Anybody asks you who I am, who I am; anybody asks you who I am, tell 'em I'm a child of God."

11:42 a.m.:

The song became much faster and louder, and the choir and everyone else started clapping their hands while singing.

11:45 a.m.:

Collection time. Everyone stopped singing except a woman dressed in blue standing in the center of the front row of the choir. Through a microphone and in the same fast tempo of the "Anybody asks you" song, she sang "I've been washed in the blood--blood of the lamb; I'm a new-born soul." One of the deacons, a man about sixty years old wearing a gray suit, started passing the collection plate. I looked in my wallet and--Thank you, Lord--found a one-dollar bill and put it in the plate.

11:47 a.m.:

The rest of the choir joined the woman in blue and the song slowed, became very soft, and now consisted of only one repeated phrase: "Washed in the blood--blood of the lamb." Reverend Johnson stood behind the pulpit, and the song and music stopped. "All those with problems," he said, "come forward. If you have troubles, come forward."

Everyone except Reverend Johnson and the anthropologist got out of their pews and stood in the trouble area, the open area in front of the pulpit. Reverend Johnson started slowly singing a prayer, and the standing people sang with him. I sat alone in the congregation pews. A woman must have decided anthropologists also have troubles; she motioned with her hand for me to come forward. I left my pew and joined them.

11:52 a.m.:

The prayer ended and everyone took their seats. The room became very quiet for several long minutes.

11:55 a.m.:

Change: The piano interrupted the silence with a loud and fast song. The choir suddenly stood and started clapping their hands. The pianist suddenly sang, "I was lost in the valley---"

The choir echoed, "He saved me!"

Over and over the pianist and the choir repeatedly sang those phrases, and people began milling around the trouble area. A woman appeared at my side, leaned down, and said, "Go round table."

More than a little confused, I asked, "Go round table?"

She pointed to the table in front of the pulpit. I looked and saw people placing money on the table and then returning to their seats. Man #1 watched the money, and man #2 thanked the people. I rose from my seat, extracted my wallet from my pants, and prayed again for a smaller bill. I found a one and placed it on the table, making my third and final donation of the day.

11:59 a.m.:

Change: The music stopped and everyone stood. One of the deacons, a man about seventy years old and wearing a brown suit, left the deacon pews and walked to the table. (From this point on, I label him man #3.) He started saying a prayer, the only one uttered during the main services not in the form of a song. He finished, returned to his pew, and the piano began playing "Amazing Grace." We all sang the song, the only one so far I had ever heard before.

12:02 p.m.:

The singing stopped. Man # 1 and man # 2 took seats in the deacons' pews. Everyone except Reverend Johnson and the choir sat down. He started singing "Amazing Grace."

12:03 p.m.:

He finished the song, the music stopped, and the choir sat down. "Praise God," he said, and the choir echoed his words. He read from the Bible and then started talking, giving his sermon. I heard him say, "Children don't pay attention enough." I heard him say, "[They] don't listen to the words of their parents." At some point in the sermon, he explained to the congregation why the children of Ham, the Biblical founders of the African race, are not destined to be the servants of the rest of mankind. I thought of my grandfather; he would have preached a different version of the story of Ham.

12:11 p.m.:

The sermon changed from talk to song, and Reverend Johnson left the pulpit and stood in front of the table. He sang, "Momma told me if you go over yonder you will get in trouble. . . . Everything will be alright!" Then he began stomping his feet and singing, "I know the Lord! He is the answer!"

12:13 p.m.:

He walked back to his pulpit, singing, "Boys and girls believe the words of your parents."

12:14 p.m.:

He started talking again, saying, "Young people keep yourselves in the right direction."

12:16 p.m.:

He resumed singing and walked along the fence stomping his feet, the noise seemingly amplified by the raised platform and reverberating through the room like the crack of a rifle. "Lord have mercy on my soul!" he sang while his feet pounded wham wham on the floor. "You take me in hand and You mold my mind!" Then he stomped and shouted, "The Word! The Word is alright!"

12:18 p.m.:

Sudden silence. Then the piano softly played. Man #3 left his deacon pew, walked to the confess chair, picked it up, and placed it in the trouble area. He stood behind it. Reverend Johnson asked if "anyone wanted to confess and unite with the church."

12:19 p.m.:

No one wanted to confess, so man #3 put the chair back in its original position and resumed his seat.

12:20 p.m.:

Big change: panic time for the anthropologist. "Mister Doughty," the Reverend Johnson ordered, "please stand and tell us what you thought of our service."

I stood, the speech I had memorized totally forgotten. "Archaeologists," I said, "study dead people. My interest in anthropology is in living people. I think your service is very emotional and very beautiful. As far as I'm concerned, the Lord is not being praised today in one of those million dollar churches in Natchitoches; He's being praised in this little church." I sat down.

12:21 p.m.:

One of the elderly mission ladies stood and read a long list of church business, making me wonder who actually took "care of church business" and who simply did the work.

12:25 p.m.:

The mission lady stopped talking, sat down, and Reverend Johnson asked for announcements. Several people stood and made comments. A woman asked for prayers for her sick brother; another woman talked about an upcoming funeral.

12:30 p.m.:

Everyone stood and sang, "Reach out and touch somebody's hand; make this world a better place if you can."

They held hands with each other while they sang. A woman in front of me reached back and took my right hand. I turned, offered my left hand to the girl behind me, and she held it. I sang with them, caught up in the emotions of the moment and feeling a strange unity with these people from a culture so different from my own. When the song ended, so did the services. The people filed by my pew, shook my hand, and told me again how glad they were that I was there.

I thought of my curiosity about where they lived. Some of them told me they lived in Clarence. To my amazement, some lived in Natchitoches, fifteen miles away, and some even lived in Winnfield, about twenty-one miles away.

The elderly mission lady who had read the list of church business lived in Natchitoches. I asked her, "Why do you drive all the way out here to go to church?"

"I went to school here," she said, pointing toward the grass at the edge of the woods, the site of the school. "And I confessed here."

"Where did you live back then?" I asked.

She raised her arm and pointed toward Highway 1226. "We lived all up and down that road. There was houses as far as you could see."

I remembered the question I had asked the white farmer. "Why did so many people move?" I asked her.

"We had to," she explained. "They started using all that machinery in the fields, and there wasn't anything for us to do. We had to have jobs, so we moved to town where there was jobs."

Mt. Pilgrim church, therefore, serves as more than a ceremonial center for this culture group: once a week they return to their roots. The church is aptly named.

The services in which I had participated also have more than a religious function. They teach this still-oppressed group dignity and that they are not meant to serve the rest of mankind. They teach the youth of the culture group to respect and obey their elders. And they forge the group together in an almost unbelievable emotional bond.

I felt that bond; I felt like a part of the group. I can not say "I found Jesus in my heart," but I found something. I tried to analyze why I felt as I did, and the answer lay in the ceremony.

It was like an emotional roller-coaster ride. One moment I felt sad, the next happy. A joyful change soon turned mournful. And the "reach out and touch somebody's hand" ending solidified the togetherness bonded during the ride. An electric current shocking one of the group would have shocked us all.

In my later interview with Reverend Johnson, I asked him about the young deacon. It seems, he told me, that the regular, elderly deacon was sick. The young man came from the congregation. They must have seven, he reminded me. The realization struck me that I was the only adult male left in the congregation. If the young man had not attended that Sunday, the anthropologist might have become a deacon. My grandfather, a minister but also a member of the Ku Klux Klan, would have turned over in his grave.

Before I left, the Reverend Johnson informed me that the annual homecoming service at Mt. Pilgrim was on Sunday, October 24, 1993. I would definitely attend, I told him.

"Be there at eleven o'clock," he told me.