Une Serpente dans mon Lit la Nuit

C'était tard la fête de la Saint-Jean. C'était un dimanche. J'avais passé la journée en bas du sureau sur la galerie, les ombrelles de fleur de sureau comme de la dentelle parfumaient l'air lourdement. J'ai baigné, ramassé les merises au bayou, et aussi les petites fleurs de sureau qui tombent sur la galerie. J'aime manger ces fleurs, faire les boissons et de l'eau pour me laver le visage. Les garçons avaient coupé le bois et le bambou alentour de la maison pendant la journée, et ils ont quitté la porte en haut ouverte pour un bout de temps.

Après une heure du matin, j'ai montée les escaliers pour aller dormir.  Je m'ai couchée dans mon lit. J’ai resté dans le lit à regarder mon phone, peut-être j'avais vu quelquechose là dessus qui m'a choqué, m'a beaucoup chagriné. Peut-être j'avais vu une forme en bas des couverts, peut-être pas. Peut-être je me rappelais, j'ai compris. Je ignorais mes sentiments à force que j'étais si contente dans mon lit, et qui donc jongle à chercher en bas des couverts pour une serpente? Meme avec plus que vingt ans ici dans ma compagne, j'ai jamais jonglé de faire ça. Mais les affaires changent.

Dans mon lit, assez fatiguée j'ai éteint la lampe et tout d'un coup j'ai senti un glissment étrange surgit sur mon bras, mon estomac, et j'ai vu la lumière de son oeil, le scintillement des écailles du serpent, le blanc de son cou. Ma cervelle disait "lézard!" mais c'était trop grand pour être un lézard. J'ai volé du lit en jetant les couverts, et j'ai vu la longue queue de la serpente glisser au coin. J'ai marché en rond dans ma chambre pendant quelques secondes à jongler quoi faire. J'ai cherché une boîte en plastique du placard et j'ai commencé à fouilliler pour la serpent. Elle était dans le coin, en arrière de mon armoire. Elle grimpait l'entourage au coin verticalement. J'étais dehors de mon corps . J'ai lutté pour mettre la boite sur la serpente, et j'ai reussi à faire ça, mais sa tête s'échappée en gagnant vers moi, j'ai essayé de la couvrir plusieurs fois mais sa tête ne voulait pas entrer dans la boîte. La serpente vibrait. Sa tête poussait vers mes pieds nus. Je pouvais la sentir. Ca fait je me suis dit: Ashlee, faut pas que tu laisse cette serpente sortir de cette boîte! Faut l'attraper. Faut la tuer. Aies la confiance en toi-même! Et c'est ça j'ai fait. J’avais le trust dans moi-même.  Je voulais pas la tuer, mais il le fallait, c’était dans mon lit. J'ai mis un amp de guitare sur la boîte pour tenir la serpente en place pendant que j’ai cherché un haltère de dix poids. C'était avec l' haltère que j'ai tué la serpente par écraser sa tête. Enfin c'était fini, et j'ai tombé back sur le lit. J'ai commencé à brailler et respirer en hystérie. J'étais seule, c'était le milieu de nuit. Je tremblais comme le temps j’avais commencé à accoucher mon bébé dans la nuit, toute seule. Le sang du serpent faisait un flacon alentour de sa tête. J'ai halluciné, en descendant en bas pour passer la balance de la nuit. 

C'était une réalité horrible, et ça m'a arrivé. Un couche-mal en vrai. C'est comme ça et avec cette connaissance terrible que reconnaitre que je suis une femme de cette prairie, et je peut faire. Je connais que j'ai appris comment attrapper, comment soigner, et des fois, comment tuer des choses pendant tout ces années je passais ici.

Cherry Bounce Update

 In 2013 I transcribed a recipe from La Tasse Cafe radio program about a curious drink called cherry bounce:

"Cherry Bounce is a thick sweet strong liqueur that people in south Louisiana make around the holidays.  You shake the wild cherry trees (merisiers) so that the berries, called merises or choke cherries, fall onto a sheet."

From that time on I began spotting wild cherry trees in our tree lines and around town or at the camp. This was my process with many plants. Every year we would check for the cherry trees and gather from the most reliable ones considering access, height, severity of bird strike, yearly production changes or other challenges. Over the years, my knowledge of where the best producing trees are has grown. This year I have become especially good at spotting the trees and the season is long and plentiful, possibly because of the snows. I have spent the entire month of May and half of June daily checking my cherry trees and it is a fulfilling activity for me. I go to my little tree, gather enough for the day, then gage if I have enough for another fifth, and should I stop in at Russel's for it. As I pick along the Teche, I can hear the bells of the church ring on the half hour. It's just me and the birds. My cousin Paula told me that my great grandfather also made cherry bounce. I've been making it for about ten years and never knew that, but my yearly focus on this process feels like it must be hereditary.

I have a list that I wrote of where to find the cherry trees but I may have augmented it for my own bounce security. 

Les merisiers:

2 in the garden at the house with swamp rose, pomegranate, muscadine and grape vines 1 in the eastern tree line in the front (could not locate 2025) 1 Prairie Laurent Dolla Store (big daddy) 2 on the Bayou Teche, pas loin de l'eglise 4 au moins à l’Academie de Sacré Cœur treeline Grand Coteau 1 at the mound site Bayou Bourbeux Road 2 on the Main Drag à Carencro (did not access) 2 on I-49 at exit 11 near the cypress place (trop haut, trop traffic, et dans les herbes) 2 Chicot woods island à Nonc Den

Here is the recipe I transcribed from the Mercedes Vidrine cookbook via la Tasse de Café radio Program. 

I should note that I go heavy on the cherries, lighter on the sugar, and I do not do the aging process with just cherries and sugar. I prefer to wash and dry the cherries, admire them, fill a bottle up 1/3 with them, cover with 1/3 sugar and fill to the top with whisky. I let that age for a month or two, shaking every week and quality control testing every few days.

Recette pour le jour-même Cherry Bounce

 

Recette pour le jour-même Cherry Bounce

C’est le mois de mai et j’après trouver encore les merisiers pour faire mon cherry bounce. Il y un merisier sur une île dans le Bois de Chicot chez ma famille, c’est là àyoù j'ai été le jour. C'était le jour même, la première fois, un dimanche matin. L’après midi, j’étais dans le merisier sur l'ile et ces merises noirs que j'ai tant espéré pour tombait autour de moi. Pour asteur c’est le mois de mai et je peux voir que toi aussi t’as paru dans ce temps de mûrage. 

Quand j’ai vu ces merises après pendre comme des régimes des raisins, plus que jamais, j’ai pensé à toi. Un beau cou-lève noir et vert glissait à côté de mon pied.  Equand j’ai secoué l’arbre, équand j’ai pris le pôle pour battre les branches et les merises tombaient sur le drap.  J’ai pensé de comment c’est bon pour un arbre d'être touché comme ça dans l’avant printemps, ça le fait produire plus des fruits. J’ai lavé ces merises dans le soleil avec rien que mes mains, ôté les tiges, équand j’ai mis mes merises en bas de l’eau fraîche encore et encore, j’ai pensé à toi. Equand j’ai séché chaque petit fruit, je les ai admirés. Comment ça brillait.  J’ai pris chaque merise pour drop un à la fois dans le cou de bouteille, doucement, chacun représentait la patience et l'espérance qu’il faut pour faire ça tourner en sirop, pour faire un fruit aigre, doux. Je les ai couvert de sucre, remplis la bouteille de whisky. Je faisais tout ça avec mon amour des choses bien faites, bien mûres, des fruits noirs et rares dans les bois, entourés de l’eau. Chaque merise que j'ai mis, j'ai parlé de mon coeur, en remerciement pour ces fruits, ce medicine, ce connaissance, et en espérance que comme ces merises chaque année, que toi tu vas revenir encore et encore, et que tu vas être là pour partager le cherry bounce avec moi dans avenir, dans le temps des fêtes.

Notes from a Louisiana Coffee

Notes from a French coffee meeting à Lafayette 

Vatican par Barry Jean Ancelet et une tasse de café

On a fait des crêpes au fleurs de sureau du jardin d’Amanda LaFleur. 

“Le Seigneur ‘té mis sur la terre pour tout le monde”

Frappé de la lune 

Bioque/byok 

Le don 

Perdu comme une lune/une caille 

Il a erechutté

Enseigner le français pas en isolation 

Lequel est meilleur: asteur ou maintenant?

Cadjin / Cadjine 

Les restants 

6 éscalins

5 sous commence la piastre 

T’as bien tombé sur la bonne personne. 

Une petite wrenne a fait une tite nique dans le panier de mon bicycle! 

Ils ont éclos. 

Il s’occupe de pétanque. 

Graillot

Alle me tiens très fort à…

 ‘Tchafa 

Les sarcelles, les nutria, les cocodrils, les ouaouarons, les écrivisses la tortue sont tout ok à manger pendant carême accordant à l’évêque. 

Ariat/hariat/harceler

Le tchu des oignons 

Je suis assez “nerd” pour… 

Chiner

Radoter - dire la même chose tout le temps 

Badgeuler - to creuller, ostiner 

Mépriser- to scorn 

Deparler- to talk crazy 

Les deparleurs radotent. 

Parler dessus quelqu’un 

Hacher le dos de quelqu’un 

Alle était marqué par son passé. 

La vinéraire est à l’abri de la lame cruelle des hommes. 

L’isle de Cube - L’isle d’écume 

Assez avenant 

Home rule vs. La Machine (Long)

Les paroisses du Fleuve 

Tcharatte / Tchadaque 

Les acadiens avaient une coutume de côté les bois au long de l’anse. 

Tu peut jamais dire “un cadjin dit” et dit jamais un cadjin comment dire. 

Vinéraire

 In 2012 there was a persistent maple syrup smell that hung in the back of my pasture. Having had enough familiarity with the other medicines, remedies and prairie plants,  I began to scrutinize the individual plants in the back corner, and it was easy to find the one because of my familiarity with all of the others. I often identify familiar plants for my own needs through crushing the leaves and smelling them. If you know a plant well and work with it, this method is reliable. This plant's smell was unique. At that time I had babies and so after some crude identification (it was pseudoghaphalium obtusifolium aka fragrant rabbit tobacco, life everlasting, vinéraire), I let the season pass. Each time I returned to the back pasture it was no longer in that spot. 

I still looked occasionally and asked around about a plant with this maple smell, but I lost it. Eventually I arrived at a time when I had a mental critical mass of native plant experience through my transcriptions of my hometown's Creole folklore. Sometimes I would set an intention to find a plant like herbe à vers, aka wormseed (to make the traditional de-worming praline) or herbe à malo, aka lizard's tail (to make the teething necklace) and go out and find them within a week somewhere in the prairie or swamp. It was in this way that in the summer of 2023 I finally found three vinéraire plants again in the side pasture.  I cleared the other plants from around her and allowed her to grow. I also began to carry a spring with me everywhere I went. I sat with the plant often and began to use it medicinally and spiritually. I never left home without it in this time and it was with me through some tough times and gave me comfort for its smell, softness and as I began to learn, rarity. 

In this time I had a meeting with some local professors and horticulturalists who I shared my curiosity with. They knew what it was but were incredulous that I had found it by smell in the pasture. They eventually produced letters and contacts of local healers and Indigenous women who were many years in search of the plant, because it was hard to find down the bayou. 

I learned that it's a plant that comes when the prairie is healing and becoming more diverse, but that it usually grows in undisturbed prairies, which my field is not; it was farmed for decades. Still remnants may remain at the edges.

Over the last three years I have observed this plant at all stages and seasons, through snow and drought. It likes dry edge and poor soil. This could be one of the reasons that it appeared here, among others. It has spread voluntarily across my back pasture from three to around 600 (this year, so far) individual plants. It has spread on its own, under conditions that I monitor, and does not yet grow where I plant it.

I make sprays, balms and burn it regularly as one would burn sage. I have documented its native uses, etymologies in Creole, French and Choctaw, as well as its extensive spiritual connections. I have shared in ongoing art exhibits such as Botanica at the Louisiana State Museum at the Cabildo in New Orleans as well as the Prairie Stories exhibit Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana. I have given lectures about it for several college classes in Louisiana and out of state, as well as at Basin Arts, Academy of the Sacred Heart, Nunu's, Atelier de Nature and at a workshop at Balfa Week.

I have had the most satisfying honor of providing the plant and seed to the women and men who were in search of it, as well as herbalists, traiteurs, healers, and a few of the members of the Indigenous tribes in order to return its medicine to the people of south Louisiana.

La prairie a une mémoire.

Tree Medicine

 Tree medicine.

There was a white pine that volunteered in the western yard. It obstructed my view of the open prairie to the southwest, so he chopped the top for my photography. That cleared the view for a few years but that tree continued to grow. Except now, at the injury, it weeps sap. I’m not sure if it’s a memory of the damage that was done to clear the path, or if sickness or parasite still lives in the tree. No matter, it has become a medicine tree. On walks around the property I stop there and check the ground for chunks. I follow their fall patterns and gather them.  At first I kept this sap and chunks of resin in my journals, not knowing what to do with it except smell it and let it perfume my journal. Sometimes I put the clearest sap on small cuts around my cuticle. 

One wet Louisiana winter day I went out to build a little fire in the wax myrtle bower but everything was damp. I pulled out the pages of my journal with the resin on them and they worked fine, similarly to the bois gras the men collected and used for fire starter. It kept my little fire going and kept me warm that day and others. It became a habit of mine to be able to spot injuries on resin trees and check them no matter where I was. I kept the pieces of resin in a tin can painted with blue and gold stars on the porch. But one day an indigenous friend gave me a balm made of bear grease and five kinds of fir resins from the north, saying that it would heal any wound and not even leave a scar. I knew then what to do with my resin collection. 

I melted the chunks down with sweet almond oil and when they were warm and incorporated, filtered it and mixed it with melted bay wax from the bower to make a balm that my boys called “tree medicine”. They refused Neosporin but would accept the tree medicine on their wounds, only after I showed them the tree itself.

Daily I work atop the Grand Coteau at a school over 200 years old, full of old oak and pine allies. Some of the pines seem to be nearly as old as the school and bare many scars and knots that give sap. I immediately began to survey each tree at recess and the girls would ask, "Madame, what are you doing?" Last year, one of the largest pines was struck by lightning and it created a rip in the bark that began to weep sap. Daily the girls and I go out and check this tree, because it gives the clearest sap that looks like tears. I have taught the girls that only the wounded trees will give the medicine, and in their healing, we can also share in it a little. I explained that the sap is like the tree’s blood and the resin is the scab. They apply it, like me, to their cuts, and know that hand sanitizer will clean it and cut the stickiness. I make a spray with the resin also that I

use daily as a hand cleaner. Sometimes I come to my classroom and there are curious pine sticks on my desk that upon further inspection are tipped with sap. They'll make a resin platter out of a piece of bark, or dig into a knot with sticks often creating more injury and then more sap. One time I found a half pound chunk of resin, who knows how old, on my desk and thought it was a chunk of tasso. This morning as I was out there in my petticoats and cape gathering fresh pine sap tears with a ruler, and curious as it is, none of the girls even asked me what I was doing.

I ain't worried bout Josephine

Lafayette Louisiana's group Da Entourage (The Entourage, also in Creole: the wall) came out with the regional hit The Bunnyhop in the 1990s. Da Entourage was formed by cousins Toemas (Griffin) and Alley Cat (Zeno), and their childhood friend Bunny B. (Brown). 

When I hear this song I can't help but notice the hyper-local French Creole feel of the use of the name Josephine in the lyrics:

        I'm so glad I got my own/I ain't worried bout Josephine 

        My life's a natural high/C'mon and bunny hop with me.

    

Martiniquaise Josephine Bonaparte, married to Emperor Napoleon, is perhaps the most famous owner of the name in the French Creole world, but as a Louisiana Cajun/Creole musician and writer, I can't help but feel the idea of this woman Josephine has trickled down from the echos of our popular music's past and into the Lafayette hip-hop scene. Something about the lyric "Josephine c'est pas ma femme" is giving the same energy as "I ain't worried 'bout Josephine."

Here I'll list as many songs as I can that mention Josephine in Cajun or Creole music.

La Valse de Josephine by  Leo Soileau and Sadie Courville

Malheureuse, mais 'garde la bas la 'tite poussière, chère, de ti neg qui s'en vient, ti-galop chez Josephine. 

Unhappy woman, look over there the little dust, dear, of your man who's coming at a cantor from Josephine's house.

My Josephine Hackberry Ramblers

Josephine oh my Josephine, t'es une jolie 'tite fille/Josephine, ma Josephine tu connais tu me fais m'ennuyer/ Tu m'as dit qu tu m'aimais/ Mais moi j'connais ça c'est pas vrai. Ma Josephine. 

Josephine, oh my Josephine, you are a pretty little girl/ Josephine my Josephine you know you make me lonely/ You told me that you loved me/ But I know that's not true/ My Josephine

Josephine c'est pas ma femme by Clifton Chenier (Queen Ida/Fatz Domino)

Bon Dieu connait/Josephine c'est pas ma femme. O Nonc Helaire/ Josephine c'est pas ma femme.

The Good Lord knows, Josephine's not my wife. Oh Uncle Helaire/ Josephine's not my wife.

Hello Josephine Keith Frank

Hello Josephine/ well how do you do/ do you remember me my baby?? Like I remember you/ You used to drive your car/ through the drive-in window.

 

Lōksh Keshíke

 Lōksh Keshíke 

(Loaksh Keh-SHEE-keh)

Ô Malheureuse Search Terms

A Lunar Cycle

La Prairie a une Mémoire

 The Prairie Has a Memory

Ashlee Wilson, 2024

La prairie a une mémoire. The prairie has a memory.

The prairie has a collective memory. Places retain une souvenance of what was before. There is memory in story of the plants that remain, the seeds in the ground, and if we are present enough it is revealed. In our stewardship of this environment we are invited to remember. The indigenous tribes of Louisiana were masters at management practices such as prairie burning and worked with the seasons and cycles of the year to maximize productivity with minimal impact. In colonial times settlers traveled by ship across oceans and made linguistic parallels between the prairie landscape and the open sea. Despite the decline of this habitat, the prairie retains its memory and so do we.

The feminine imagery displayed across the Cajun Prairie in the form of Marian grottos is a visible symbol of our reverence for the feminine as well as the deeper indigenous matriarchy that permeates our cultural memory. Cultures over the world recognize water goddesses as protectoresses over long voyages. In South Louisiana perhaps the most visible of these is Our Lady of the Assumption, known in Acadian culture as the Maris Stella or Star of the Sea, but also in Yemayá, the Yoruba water goddess. 

The prairie has an outer and inner life. On the visible outside the folklore is French, American, Cajun or Creole, but underneath the deep-rooted grasses there are native seeds, as well as sacred indigenous relics that remain. Research of the origin of the name Prairie des Femmes (Prairie of the Women) has led to the story of it being a place where indigenous women stayed when their men left. This research has also manifested on a personal level into a tangible reverence for the land and recognition of the fragility of the loss of not just the prairie soils, but also the stories and the languages that existed here. 

My act of restoration for the prairie has been to inhabit the Prairie des Femmes and act as a scribe for her folklore as well as a steward by encouraging her native flora and fauna. One of the proofs of this work has been the appearance in my overworked sweet potato field of the native medicinal pseudognaphalium obtousifolium, fragrant rabbit tobacco, known locally as vinéraire (vulneraire). I found it by its fragrance in the back of my prairie in 2011, and in a similar way to the gathering of Prairie des Femmes origin stories, I have begun to share this medicine with locals who have memories and need of it. 

Ashlee Wilson, a native of Ville Platte, Louisiana, is a teacher, artist, and self-taught Louisiana French speaker. She is widely recognized for her writing, photography, and visual journals documenting her journey in learning Louisiana French, as well as her work with native plants and folk herbalism. Ashlee created the Prairie des Femmes blog in 2012 to chronicle daily life on her historical prairie. She is also the author of The Plains of Mary (2014) and the Ô Malheureuse collection (2019, UL Press). She currently teaches French at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau.

The Prairie Has a Memory pays homage to her home, La Prairie des Femmes, in St. Landry Parish. This historic prairie, documented in records from the mid- to late 18th century, lies near the boundaries of the Attakapas-Ishak and Opelousas territories, just east of the sacred hills of Grand Coteau. Once a sweet potato farm, the land has become a site of restoration under Ashlee’s care. For over 20 years, she and her family have cultivated native plants, reintroduced traditional land stewardship practices such as periodic burns, minimal mowing, and abstaining from chemical herbicides, all in an effort to restore the prairie’s natural balance and preserve its memory.

Notre Dame de Guadalupe

Le 11 décembre

Belle, le 10 décembre

Le 9 décembre, un lundi

Samedi en décembre

Le 5 décembre

Prairie aux Femmes Maps

La Veuve de Musicien

La balance de la vie 
Devient les restants 
C’est nous qui reste 
Quand les hommes sont gone 
Le dernier bout c’est la veuve du pain
Mais moi j’suis la veuve d’un musicien 

December 1

November 30

Comme la Femme dit

From the Egyptian Book of the Dead Chapter 94, Prairie des Femmes Journal 2-2016, Tomb of Nefertari #pdfjournalaew

Found Poetry: Carencro Coyote Sightings

Prairie Noël

Items on my desk at the Academy of the Sacred Heart on a Thursday in Mid-November

11 novembre

10 novembre

November 5

Le 4 novembre

Le 3 novembre

Ville Platte Girl

"Les filles de la Ville Platte

Moi j'connais pas quoi y'a avec eux

Elles me semblent si vaillantes et si adorables

Mais y'a pas un qui veut de moi

Moi j'connais pas si c'est moi 

Si c'est moi le malchanceux de la Ville Platte"

My parents met at the Evangeline Club

My daddy said that it was instant love

He'd played all over Acadiana

Lookin for the prettiest girl in Louisiana

A Ville Platte Girl

The way you know that she a Ville Platte Girl 

She'll cut you some yeuxs canailles

Yan-yan et yon-yon après cet homme tout le temps

She in love with his soco eye.

***

 J'etais au bal at the fais-do-do

We step'd it fast and then we waltz'd it slow 

Y'avait une catin 

Who really caught my eye 

Elle 'té assis au coin avec les yeux canailles 

J'ai dit moi-même

Mais hey I like that 

But you know that girl looks like 

She's from Ville Platte

Mais je m'ai dit  moi-même 

I'm gonna give her a whirl

No matter what they say 

About the Ville Platte girl.

We some real good dancers now

Don't ya know?

Yeah we can jitterbug 

and we can zydeco

All them good ole boys 

They wanna give us a twirl

Cause there's just something bout 

A Ville Platte girl

You know I been warned time and time again

About the girls from the Parish of Evangeline 

But my paw paw said that I should give it a whirl

No matter what they say about the Ville Platte girl:

Elles ont les yeux canailles 

Tout le temps elle tchequaille

Ça aime roder la Prairie Ronde

Ça l'aime aller au Fred's

Cook on the braise

Elle peux jouer bourée et bataille

T'as jamais connue une fille comme ça

And if you think you know 

You probably connais pas 

All them good ole boys 

They wanna give her the world 

But that ain't nothin to a Ville Platte girl.

Ashlee Wilson 2016

Unrequited love’s part of being young