The Covenant¶

The Covenant is a religious community led by the prophet Elijah Ray that occupies the Georgia ghost town of Auraria near Dahlonega, known locally for its fermented peach preserves, a hallucinogenic peach drink and red-clay river baptisms.


Type	Religious community / cult
Aliases	Auraria religious community; the cult; Auraria folks
Leader	Elijah Ray
Base	Auraria, Georgia
Status	Active; in a land dispute (as of Appalachia 04)
First appearance	Appalachia 01

Overview¶

The Smith Hotel clerk in Dahlonega describes Auraria as a little gold-rush mining town taken over by "some religious folks" about ten years earlier. The members wear long dresses and robes, live in tents, have no electricity or phones, and talk about the end of the world. Morning glories grow everywhere. He advises the team not to stay there after dark (Appalachia 01). The team finds a sign reading "Welcome to the Covenant. Try our peaches," a pre-Civil War church, glowing white tents, and robed members who ignore them (Appalachia 02).

The membership is a couple of hundred at most, possibly under a hundred. Locals call them the "heebie-jeebies", but the Covenant is isolated rather than closed and allows outsiders to speak to its members (Appalachia 02). For their beliefs see Covenant Beliefs.

Practices¶

Peach products. The members grow peaches, potatoes and morning glories, make preserves and quilts, and run stills. The preserves are fermented and malty (see Covenant Peach Preserves). A ritual peach drink with a hallucinogenic fungus gives visions, and Primenthol Greengrass warns the team never to take a vision quest (Appalachia 02).
Baptism. New members are submerged in a red-clay river by Elijah Ray after drinking a jar of dark liquid with peaches floating in it, as the cold open of Appalachia 04 shows with the vacuum salesman Jeremy (Appalachia 04).
Diet and schooling. The members do not eat meat. Mother Dahlia Riversand runs a one-room schoolhouse teaching Latin and times tables, with Elijah Ray teaching comparative religion and said to have taught at Harvard (Appalachia 04).

Members¶

Elijah Ray, the prophet. Prim describes him as "pretty nice guy. For a bigamist"; a prophetic dream and a TV report of a shooting star led him to move the congregation to Auraria (Appalachia 02).
Mother Dahlia Riversand, the elder.
Willow Greengrass, who vanished.
Clover, a shy young woman, and River, Willow's close friend, who runs the stills (Appalachia 04).
Angie, Elijah Ray's youngest wife, mentioned by Prim.
Jeremy, a recovering Quaalude addict being baptized.

History¶

The disappearance¶

The team's first contact with the Covenant comes through Willow's disappearance. Sheriff Burke thinks she left the cult, and Prim is certain she would have come to her sister. The team does not approach the members on its first visit to Auraria, but returns to question them in Appalachia 04 (Appalachia 02, Appalachia 04).

The Covenant in Appalachia 04¶

The Covenant is economically desperate. Dahlia and River explain that "corporate goons" arrived about a year earlier with paperwork claiming the land and threatening eviction. Elijah Ray calls it a lie and says the men are agents of Satan, and the orchard deal and the sale of preserves and quilts are meant to fund a lawyer. The eviction letters name only a law firm, Jackson and Lee's, and not the client. Dahlia says the river water has been boiled and treated with chlorine tablets for about a year after intestinal trouble; one member lost two toes to an infected toenail. Clover says the members often get yeast infections from bathing in the river, "a lot of runoff from the Spud Hut plant", and that the Covenant is "getting a boiler" (Appalachia 04). See The Land Dispute and Spud Hut.

Kurt, Huell and Andrew do not meet Elijah Ray. Andrew says he has an idea for meeting him "but not for today", and the team leaves without stopping Jeremy's baptism (Appalachia 04).

Suspicion¶

When the team finds a creature in the Consolidated Gold Mine, Andrew suggests a cult could keep a mine secret, and the sheriff's face darkens. In the same episode a message from Big Bill reminded the team to keep everything by the book because of Ruby Ridge, Marblehead and the fact that "there is a cult involved in this one" (Appalachia 03). The Covenant is never shown to be involved with the mining or the ape-men, and the later episodes do not return to it.