(03-11-2024, 08:34 PM)Ninurta Wrote: That's the legend of it, and it's what the media hammered on to the outside world - that it was "all over a hog". The reality is a little more complicated and nuanced...
...Some folks are of the opinion that "Uncle Jim" Vance is the one who actually kicked the blood feud into high gear by killing a McCoy who had served in the Union armies rather than the Confederate armies. I think that we can all agree that killing off a family member tends to make a hog-stealing pale in comparison, and could potentially serve to re-heat an otherwise dying conflict...
...So, while an alleged hog-stealing was alleged by the media to be the root of the matter, there were other escalatory events that got ignored in the rush to tell the tale to the outside world, when the media seized on the more outlandish "justifications" for the feud, and ignored what may have been more serious core events that escalated it.
I would suggest the 'Hog-concept' was more conducive to a media with a certain agreed perception on the
working-class folk of that region and pushed because the need for nuances connected to the Civil War would
require them to explain to a reader that they believe is comprehensively dumb!
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.