Our Cajun Language

Louisiana AgriCulture

Michot-Decuir House, Avoyelles

 

"People have to know that in South Louisiana we have culture and not just agriculture."

 ~Adele Domas Michot, mother of Louis J. Michot, as told to the author by LJM, November 22, 2007,  at La Roue Qui Pend

Painting of the Prairie 2006

I did this painting of the prairie just after we moved in, in 2006. I never really finished it, but it was good enough to remind me of how the prairie used to look.

Various Landscapes of the Prairie

Thomassee Road in the summer

Les jambes de pluie toward Grand Coteau

a purple field on Jules LaGrange road

arc en ciel to the east

the ho,stead under a late summer sky

The Mysterious PDF by K. Cornell

Here is a link to a set of images taken back in 2006 seen through the beautiful eye of our friend kccornell. Velvet live oaks in winter at the fringes of the oxbow, the old LaGrange house made of cypress pegs and bousillage, the garçonière, red brick hearth, newspaper wallpaper, original cypress pylons. Really beautiful set. Thanks, K. Cornell!!

photo credits K. Cornell

La Prairie des Femmes

La Prairie des Femmes (Women's Prairie) is a natural prairie in Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana that borders an oxbow-shaped swamp to the north, Bayou Bourbeau to the west, and Pointe Claire to the east. Prairie Laurent is to the north/northwest and la Prairie Basse to the south. The nearest town is Leonville, and the towns of Arnaudville (La Jonction) and historic Grand Coteau are nearby. Coulée des Marks runs through la Prairie des Femmes and creates a small cypress basin at the country intersection of Thomassee and Jules Lagrange roads at Le Pont des Marks, or Mark's Bridge.

Prairie des Femmes appears on detailed maps of the region as early as 1806, having been inhabited by French Creoles well before this time. The prairie was at the border of the Atakapas and Opelousa tribe's territories, so there was much Indian traffic through the area. Legend has that the area was a high land, a safe zone near the bayous where Native American women lived together while the men hunted or warred with neighboring tribes. Another story says that in Louisiana's historic flood of 1927 that woman and children were sent there from neighboring communities because of its safety. Another tale sites the area as a place where the widows of the soldiers of the Civil War settled to live the remainder of their lives in peace. The most likely story of the origin of the name Prairie des Femmes has two versions: One is that the natives inhabiting the prairie moved after a hunt, as was custom. A few of their old women were left at  the camp being too old to move. The other version is similar, but is more mysterious: that the braves went off one day on a hunt leaving the women and children and simply never came back.  The women left there were discovered by the French Creoles and Acadians who settled the area who called it La Prairie des Femmes.