Mamouian

Mamou is a little country town in Evangeline Parish, just west of Ville Platte. It is an outpost to the north of Acadiana, in the boarder lands near the pine curtain, and a place known for its isolation and rough prairie attitude.  Mamou is remarkable for many reasons, most notably for its contribution to Cajun Music, the work of Revon Reed and "Pascale", and Fred's Lounge, a popular back road stop if you want to party on a Saturday morning. Mamou is amazing because it does not change or modernize much. There are no fast food places in Mamou, but they do sell really good boudin and gratons at T-Boy's Slaughter House. Despite being from VP, I will admit, I like Mamou this way.


Growing up in "big" Ville Platte we usually went to Mamou for the Lundi Gras street dance, where once I got punched in a brawl (one of many to be had on the Mardi Gras streets of Mamou). Now we like to go to Fred's a couple of Saturdays a year to soak up the atmosphere in the low-slung bar, hang with the "Mamouligans", hear live Cajun music, and shoot cinnamon Hot Damn at 9am with Tante Sue, the Octogenarian bartender, grandmother and "sheriff" of the whole operation. 

 Tante Sue sings the Balfa Waltz and shoots Hot Damn. No four letter words, just L-O-V-E and B-E-E-R (but not on the dancefloor) And no kissing.

Small Louisiana towns like to have little rivalries.  Our big one was with Eunice, but we also liked to pick on Mamou people, who we had more contact with, calling them "Yans" or "Mamou-Yans"  meaning "a person from Mamou." Maybe there was also a hint of playful disdain when we called the Mamou Yans "Yans", but it was all in good fun, like the yans were the Mamou mascot or something. It is pronounced nasally, like "yah-n", a very French pronunciation now that I think about it. It rhymes with pain, coin and Adroin. We also called people who whined or complained "yahn-yahns", as in "Quit ya yahn-yahnin!" (Stop your whining).  I think this had less to do with Mamou-Yans than with the sound a whining child makes. We used "yohn-yohn" similarly. 

When I began to learn French, I also began to figure these words out. So, what was a "Yan" exactly, other than a person who comes from Mamou? I had never heard a word that sounded like "yan" in French, but the way people I knew used it, it sounded like its own word. Finally I realized that a "Mamou-Yan" is one word: Mamouian, or a person from Mamou. To people who don't speak French though, they heard the word Mamouian as two words. Its an especially easy assumption to make when 1. you think French is English  2. you consider the tendency for Louisiana French to inflect the last syllable of a word - MamouYAN!

Go went young man, go west and go to Mamou...

"I'd rather be a Mamou Yan than a Mamou Yon!"