Our Cajun Language

La Vie d'une Maîtress d'École

bulletin board in class- French in Acadiana

After marrying and moving to the prairie, I found myself teaching at the parish high school at the mouth of the chemin gravaille. Every morning I drove up the dirt road, over the bayou, across the little highway and into the driveway of the school. It was a rural school. Many of my coworkers spoke French with me, the janitor, to coach, all the ladies in the cafeteria, many teachers, the principal... They spoke a beautiful French and taught me a lot. 

My students came from Creole and Cajun families who still spoke French. Heberts, Quebedeaux, Arnaud, Stelly, Marks, Richards, Gautraux, Babineaux, Angelle, Mistrot, Malveaux, McGee. My first week a girl raised her hand and asked me if I knew of her great grandfather, Dennis McGee, one of Cajun music's most beloved and colorful fiddle players. I taught a bunch of Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco's cousins, nieces and nephews. They were all related to the great musicians. Too many to tell here, but they all had stories.

They had words, too. My big loveable football players once came into class, hand over their hearts singing "Madame! Quelle éspoir..."(what are my chances/hope?) I made these same boys translate "La Porte en Arierre"(The Back Door) by D.L. Menard as their senior final and they did it without error. That was too easy.

When I taught the verb laisser (to leave, let) they waited for me to explain the conjugation before Paul Broussard raised his hand. "Madame," he said, "what's "laisse-les" mean?...because when me and my brother fight, my mom says, "Stop! stop!" and my dad says "laisse-les!!!"(let them!) That conjugation business was a waste of time, it seemed.

That class was memorable; full of good kids who were close to French at home. When they'd get fired up they'd start saying, "va la merde! va la merde!"(go to h***) or when Olivia got mad at Paul she'd hiss, "'bec mon tchu, Paul!"(kiss my a**!) I fussed at them a lot, but my rule was that they had to speak French in class, and they were using the French they knew. Plus, their pronunciation and accents were flawless. On a costume day of homecoming week, a shy creole girl who pretty much spoke French because she was raised with her grandmother (there were many like this) told me "Madame, ton linge semble drôle."(Madame, your clothes look funny.) Another time she managed to stammer out, "On est contents de l'auoir toi pour notre maitress" (We are happy that you are our teacher.)

They taught me about the insect called the "t-doigt"(little finger). They said that when a little tiny black and yellow striped fly (hover fly) started flying around your head, raise and wiggle your little finger and say "t-doigt, t-doigt, t-doigt" and it'll land on your finger. It's true. I have since seen the t-doigt, called the t-doigt, and it has landed on my t-doigt.

They brought me things. One morning Amy Martin was waiting at my door with an electric blue crawfish her daddy found in his traps. They brought cartons of homegrown muscadines, boxes of yams, limbs off shrubs like the manglier that had medicinal properties. They brought me handwritten french song lyrics, cookbooks,  CDs of all kinds of French music, family stories and pictures.

In the halls when they changed classes they'd  show off their French, even the students who did not take French with me. They'd ask me politely, "Comment ça va, Madame?" like pros, but more often I would hear all the Cajun curse words strung together in every combination possible echoing off the cinder block walls.

"May the Force be with you"

Le Chemin Gravaille

The dirt road.

No Dumping

les traces des jeunes bougres de la prairie

Une veille maison apres tomber au bord du bayou

chene vert au coin de Hickory

The fishing hole on the Bourbeux

O Maris Stella, A Prayer for Hurricane Season

O God, Master of this passing world, hear the humble voices of your children. The Sea of Galilee obeyed your order and returned to its former quietude; you are still the Master of land and sea. We live in the shadow of a danger over which we have no control. The sea, like a provoked and angry giant, can awake from its seeming lethargy, overstep its conventional boundaries, invade our land and spread chaos and disaster. During this hurricane season, we turn to You, O loving Father.
Spare us from past tragedies whose memories are still so vivid and whose wounds seem to refuse to heal with the passing of time.
O Virgin, Star of the Sea, Our Beloved Mother we ask you to plead with your Son in our behalf, so that spared from the calamities common to this area and animated with a true spirit of gratitude, we will walk in the footsteps of your Divine Son to reach the heavenly Jerusalem where a storm-less eternity awaits us.
Amen.
-The Most Reverend Maurice Schexnayder (1895-1981) second Bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisnana

How, Even as an Americaine, I learned Louisiana French Part 1

I remember singing "Frère Jacques" with my aunt in the bathroom of my grandmother's house on Park Boulevard in Baton Rouge when I was four. There is a tape of my parents playing with me when I was almost two where mom calls dad a gros tub and I repeat it, and he howls with laughter. Mom was constantly doing things like making us pat-pat-zoo (pain perdu) and cleaning the gra-doo (gras-doux) off of my toddler face. Dad was always repeating these words and laughing. I guess I was aware of the French because of his perspective. He was a Baton Rouge Creole, a musician, with that "dark French" skin. His family, despite having ample French, Spanish and Acadian heritage, had been Americanized a couple generations back in Baton Rouge, though his grandmother spoke some French for sure. That is where the Frere Jacques came in. Dad was charmed with the cute "coonass" things my mother, the youngest daughter of a Ville Platte merchant said. One of the first stories he told me about their courtship (besides them meeting at the Evangeline Club when she was 15, he was playing in the band Clutch) was about the time she asked him, upon arriving somewhere, if he was going to "get down" out of the car. He thought she meant "getting down" in the 1970's sense of the word. She just meant get out of the car.  She did not realize that, like so many other things she said, getting down from the car, saving the dishes, getting "to da terre" was not standard, and on the other side of the Atchafayala Basin, they talked differently. Now I know that the way we use "get down" comes from French. When stepping down from a car or carriage, the verb "descendre- to get down, descend" is used. We learned English from people whose first language was French, and so we speak French in English.

Dad always used the words he heard the Ville Plattians use in his songs. One song, "Frenchy Town" went: 

"Got drunk at the bar, 

ti pas honte, 

ti pas honte, 

threw a big tracas, 

no mo drinks for me..." 

Another one about him leaving for tour went: 

"I had to phone ya from Livonia 

It's me, T-Neg.

I'm on my way to California

Heart all broke like a paques-paques egg."

When dad entered the contest for the 1984 New Orleans World's Fair theme song, he went up against giants like Toussaint and Neville, and won first and second places with the two songs he wrote and recorded entirely himself in the studio at our house. He incorporated Louisiana French lyrics at the end of the winning song, Mardi Gras City, saying "'Eh là bas, allons..."

When my parents divorced I was in first grade. I moved to Ville Platte where my grandparents and extended family lived. There my first real immersion began. I picked up on how people talked differently from Baton Rouge. The week we moved I told my mother, Mom, I love Ville Platte, It's a lot like Baton Rouge, except in Baton Rouge they say "Main Street" and in Ville Platte they say "Main Street". That is, I was picking up on the way Cajun French and Cajun English emphasize the last syllable of a word or phrase. 

In Ville Platte, French was commonplace, but because it was never spoken to children of my generation, at least not in my family, as a young child I heard it, and also tuned it out to a point. I remember hearing it the most in Pointe Blue, at my best friend's house. Her grandmother Soileau lived down the road from her, and was a real French creole woman. She and her son, my friend's father, would sit in their cowhide rockers in front of the fireplace in her country kitchen. They'd rock on the linoleom floor behind us and chicane back and forth in French while we ate squirrel rice and gravy, spitting the bbs out until they went ting ting ting on the plate. We couldn't drink our pop while we ate, no. Had to eat, then drink. We got a check cola on ice from under the sink. Before dinner, we washed our hands in the corner of the kitchen in an old time bassin with a pitcher to pour fresh water. The water in the bassin stayed cloudy with soap. When we were bored, we chased the sheep in the back yard of her house or went to explore the ancient sharecropper barn. Sometimes, my friend's dad would leave to run his traps, and come home having caught something mysterious, like a pure black coyote.

One day, I asked Mr. Soileau about what they were saying, what language was it? He said it was French and asked me if I wanted to learn. I did. He was eating a banana. He showed it to me. "Banane" he said. I repeated. That's easy, I thought. If that's French, I can do that. I kept that word "banane" in my head like a treasure, my first real French word. Old Mrs. Soileau gave us Moon Pies and pop rouge for a snack when I'd spend the weekend there. She'd always say, "Aw, Cher, you so fat!" to me. My friend's parents assured me that it was a compliment, and I struggled to understand, but after so many times of her telling me, I did start to understand. I loved her ways. I loved her cooking and her button collection and her kind eyes. Surely, though, to her, I was a 'tite Americaine. I had an Americain last name, I was the granddaughter of the owner of the only department store in the parish who spoke French for business only. And I was fat. Americaine.

In fifth grade, I moved schools and went to Vidrine Elementary. In the mornings I'd ride with Ms. Dolly Fontenot and her son, and she'd listen to KVPI, the town radio station. We'd listen to the news in French and to the radio program called the Tasse de Cafe, all very lively and almost all in Louisiana French. The whole drive through the misty cow fields of the Vidrine Road, I would listen, and pretend that I, too understood. I did understand when they were advertising a buisness and giving the telephone number because they'd say, "trois-six-trois" (363) which was the prefix that all the phone numbers in Ville Platte began with. So I must have known my numbers. Then, low and behold, the next year, on the Sacred Heart playground, a little Buller girl taught me how to say "fee bee tan" (fils de putain) or SOB, in French. Americaine or not, I was learning.

Le Ciel en Rose et Bleu

Once, the sky became pink and blue at sunset.

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

The Early Days

The room.

If only it was this easy...

We found this bottle of red liquid in the walls of the house.

After the first "room party" we had in 2004

original pine walls

"mes souliers rouges adieu mignonne...adieu mignonne mes souliers rouges..."

room party decor

room party decorations

Wall paper on cypress

Coming to the Prairie and Staying

The first time I came to the Prairie des Femmes it was January 2004 and the field didn't look like much. It was in an area near Arnaudville, which, despite its proximity to my hometown, I had never been to. Happy and curious to go and see this land my new beau had put a down payment on, we drove out, just three months after meeting. He wanted to know if I liked it. If it was 'too far'. From what? It was far, but I did like it enough. It was country land, and cheap and in the parish bordering Evangeline, where my family was. There was a nearby high school where I could teach, and eventually did, so that was reasonable. The five mile gravel road that the land was on was another factor to consider. It hugged the bayou before crossing the prairie and following the oxbow swamp around three completely blind curves and a few more dog legs. There was litter in the bayou and dumped trash, tires, mattresses, and appliances all along the road, mostly at the curves. Sometimes a few bags of crawfish heads with the death smell all over the place. There's so much litter that sometimes, now, I forget to see it, and other times I am actually happy to see the orange jumpsuits of Saint Landry Parish inmates walking on the cleaning crew. 

There are quite a few young men who like to spin out and leave deep ruts after a rain. Other than fields and thick woods, there are a few dozen modest houses and trailer homes that dot the prairie, some line the road, and some are set back in coves. The houses are more affluent and concentrated as you approach Marks' Bridge, at the heart of the Prairie des Femmes. In the woods, many wooden structures are going to ruin or have already flattened.

In the fields there are a few horses and herds of black cows. There are violet crows that fly menacingly around, buzzards who claim the abundant carrion of the dirt road, falcons who navigate their wings through the woods and owls who live in the tall trees along the bayou.  

Since I came to the Prairie and stayed I have noticed that in the trees along the road there are dozens of bright red cardinals that swoop bravely across the path and back into the woods, and despite the starkness of the road on a winter's day, the neighbors passing in their familiar trucks will lift a finger or two off the steering wheel in greeting.

Scary! Hail Mary No-Tale-Fairy

Scary

Hail Mary

No Tale-Fairy

All real, very

Extraordinary.

"Scary, Hail Mary No Tale-Fairy.
All real, very, extraordinary." - lil Wayne, Misunderstood

Quand la Corne est dans l'air

J'ai pris ses photos de la lune hier au soir au crépescule. Ça me rappellé d'un proverbe en Francais qui parle de "quand la corne de la lune est en bas..." the weather is supposed to be one way, and "quand la corne est en haut" it's supposed to be another. I think it's something like, when the points (horns) of the moon are pointing upwards, there will be good weather, and when they point downwards, the weather is supposed to be bad? rainy? I am not sure. I looked it up once, and there are modern French weather proverbs that talk about this very thing, but I am interested about the local version. I heard someone mention it on KVPI's Tasse de Cafe radio program one morning. They said .."oh ouais, la corne est en haut!" and everyone understood. That's something that I have noticed that Cajun and Creole people of Louisiana still do. We watch the sky and animals for the forecast. Wonder how long that information has been passed down and will continue to be. Please excuse the "blurific" iphone photos, but, j'connais pas, there is something nice about them, quand-même.

 la lune et le bamboo sont hauts

What does it mean when the horns of the moon are up?

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.

The Oxbows of the Mississippi

I like to study oxbow rivers, especially the many oxbow and meander
scars of the Mississippi River Delta.

Details from La Maison in "les grands zabs"

We live out in the country, la campagne,  les grands zabs. My husband built our Acadian-style house with the help of friends and family. We moved one central room from a century-old cypress shack in Mire and built onto it using salvaged lumber from old houses and barns. I think that my husband has touched every nail in every board of the place. I love living here, but having grown up a city girl at the edge of Ville Platte, it did take me years to learn how to live far out here in les grands herbes (the tall grass), les éronces (the briars/sticks), les finfifonds (the finest end of the furthest ends) and to accept that the house, like anything,  is always in progress. And also that the grass stays tall!

 

Au Long du Bayou Têche

We took our little bâteau out on Bayou Têche at Leonville the other day. Went down to where there is an old dump and bottle bank. I found a couple
of cool old bottles, but being on he bank is sorta scary. It reminded me
of that scene in the movie Labyrinth where they are sinking in the trash. The bank is practically "made" of broken glass and rusted aluminum and metal of all kinds, and covered with a nice layer of bayou mud, leaves and poison ivy. The bank is steep and Il faisait chaud! It was hot out. On the ride back we saw some very strange "brain-like" fruits of the bois d'arc. Back at the new launch across from Champagnes Marché I found a few more old shards. Some very beautiful ones along the Bayou Têche.

Fruits of the bois d'arc.

Update les Vieux Temps article by Floyd Knott

Click here for Les Vieux Temps Article UPDATE Oral history is sometimes not entirely accurate. One of the many enjoyments I get from writing articles about old times is the many comments from the readers about different versions of events from the past that they have heard from there elders. Such was the case about the origin of the name Prairie Des Femmes, a community in St. Landry Parish. Apparently the version expressed earlier about the name coming as a result of the Civil War battles was not correct because additional research indicates that the name was in use as early as 1809. Father Hebert’s earliest document in which Prairie Des Femmes was mentioned was a memo written in 1809 from the cattle warden. A document, “Police des Animaux,” which authorizes the picking up of all stray cattle in the District of Grand Coteau, Prairie Des Femmes and Carencro, was signed by George King, parish judge. Prairie Des Femme was mentioned quite frequently by Father Hebert in his research from 1809 to 1830 – years before the Civil War.

David Lanclos has a different explanation:

“I have also heard a version of the story about how the place came to be called by that name. The story goes that as Indian groups traveled through their hunting grounds they often set up camps on the various prairies that bordered Bayou Teche. According to the story, Indians had set up a camp at the place we know today as Prairie Des Femmes. When they decided it was time to move on, there were several women who were too old or too sick to travel. As was often the custom of these Indians, the old women were abandoned at that place, where they were eventually discovered by early settlers who lived in the area. The place thus came to be called Prairie Des Femmes.”

Is this the true story? Who knows, but if we keep exploring it, sooner or later, a definitive version about the origin of the name Prairie Des Femmes is bound to emerge. If anyone has heard a different version, please contact me.

Comments about Les Vieux Temps articles are always appreciated. Please call (337) 754-9980 or e-mail yknott123@aol.com

Aerials of the Prairie

Looking south

Looking NorthWest

The Academy of the Sacred Heart at Grand Coteau

The LaGrange House

The historic Lagrange House is the oldest structure on the prairie. The story I heard about this place is that it was built in the 1700 possibly early 1800s by a former soldier/general in Napoleon's army or his descendant. He was shipwrecked after leaving Egypt picked up with two comrades by a passing ship and left in New Orleans. They were in poor shape when a wealthy planter from les Opelousas recognized their fine French accents and shabby vêtements and knew they were in trouble. He offered to bring them back to his plantation, where, as luck would have it, he had three eligible daughters that each officer married. One of their homesteads was the older house in the photos, most recently inhabited into the 1980's by a family, then an elderly gentleman.

Nonc Dav looking at the LaGrange House, oldest building on the prairie. We were told that the writing on the main wall of the home was done to prevent trespassers.

The cypress foundations.

 

Wisteria in early March

 built-in bed and bousillage wall

 

the porch and foundations 

 

Decorative rafter ends- Carribean?

an interior room

bousillage and pegs in the garconierre