Origin Stories

 I have heard many stories of the origins of the Prairie des Femmes. The most common is that there were "a bunch of women" out here, or, a more girls than boys ratio among the settlers. The oldest residents have confirmed that it's "an old name, yeah" and that possibly the "Indian women looked good", and that's why it's La Prairie des Femmes. They also told me things like it was where the Civil War widows came to live, or it was where the women and children came in the flood of 1927 to escape the crevasse and flood. The Prairie des Femmes is a higher prairie, a small and abundant prairie. Those stories may all have elements of truth to them, but maps showing the Prairie aux/des Femmes exist that predate the Civil War by 50 years or more.

Prairie aux Femmes, in the V of the bayous under Opeloussas, Barthelemy Lafon - Map of Louisiana - 1806

As I dug deeper, the Indian stories started coming in. They say the PDF was a place of high native traffic, and I have heard a few variants of the same story: that there was a village of only native women and children here when the French settlers came upon the Prairie.

The first one is that the Attakapas who moved along the prairies of the Teche left a group of old women behind, as was custom, when it was time to strike camp. Then Miss Mavis told me that she heard that the braves had left for battle or to hunt and simply never came back. Then Mr. Paul told me more recently a more complete variant of the story that takes in the accounts of it being a place for widows. He said the tribe that lived in this area became too successful and began to overflow their lands. They would go to war with the other tribes (the Opelousas?) in the hills of Grand Coteau, where they would go to fight with honor. When the braves would die, their widows would come to live together in the village at Prairie des Femmes, at the site near the junction of the Bayous Fuselier and Bourbeux, and that when the explorers came up the Bayou Fuselier, (Fuselier de la Claire? Darby?) they discovered only Indian women, children and old people there.

 

For now, I am really enjoying the stories and searching for the origins of La Prairie des Femmes...