Indian Women Plant Corn in the Prairie des Femmes

Prairie des Femmes Brick Wall

Prairie des Femmes Map

Summer 2003 Journal Pages

Rabalis Memes

Awesome Louisiana French memes created and submitted by Nathan Rabalais.

It's Saturday night, dear, "shall we" (raccoon) dance?

Preach!

Shut ya mouth you can't speak the good French like me

Me, I know you always gonna listen to the advice of others...

Parrain, I am afraid of monsters. Mais, you don't have to be, dear. You just have to run fast and don't tell them that I am your parrain.

This guy right here farted, yall! Really, I farted.

Chaoui don't like it...

Bruh... I think I just seen a monsta!

Hey fellow, you know what a cayouene is in my parish?

You just simply can't run to Mordor!

Why you dropped the potato!?

I went drop off the kids at the game and not I can run the roads in my suburban and make trouble.

 Born in Eunice, Louisiana, Nathan Rabalais received his B.A. in music from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2007 and pursued graduate studies in musicology at the University of Strasbourg. He obtained an M.A. in French at UL Lafayette, specializing in Louisiana language and culture and North American Francophone literature.  Currently, his main research interests include Louisiana French dialects, oral tradition and music of South Louisiana. More recent research topics and projects include popular and community theater among Francophone minorities, adult literacy for native Cajun French speakers and dialect pedagogy. In other words, Nathan Rabbalais is a pretty righteous dude.

Prehistory in Prairie des Femmes

In the camper

Me and Nonc Dav, circa 2004, Prairie des Femmes, Louisiana

Fact: I am faster than 80% of snakes. Rabalais class memes!!

I feel pretty confident in the future of Louisiana French language and humor after seeing these memes des etudiants de Monsieur Rabalais. Merci, y'all!

Fact: I am faster than 80% of snakes.

I know this feeling, me.

I am not a chat-oui (raccoon) I am a chat-non!

I met a guy in Lafayette. He told me You're a pretty doll! (prostitute)

One can not simply pass through the back door.

I am not crazy! Look! I carved your name on my arm!

Let that bouillie custard fall on the floor!

The snap-beans aren't salty.

I will never let you go. (Lache pas la patate Jacques et Rose!)

Many thanks to Nathan Rabalais and his Cajun French students at Tulane in New Orleans for creating and submitting these hilarious memes to the Prairie des Femmes!


 Born in Eunice, Louisiana, Nathan Rabalais received his B.A. in music from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2007 and pursued graduate studies in musicology at the University of Strasbourg. He obtained an M.A. in French at UL Lafayette, specializing in Louisiana language and culture and North American Francophone literature.  Currently, his main research interests include Louisiana French dialects, oral tradition and music of South Louisiana. More recent research topics and projects include popular and community theater among Francophone minorities, adult literacy for native Cajun French speakers and dialect pedagogy. In other words, Nathan Rabbalais is a pretty righteous dude.

Mozelle's Grotto

 We were riding Sunday morning between Cecilia and Arnaudville when I saw a grotto I had been meaning to get a picture of. It was among ruins of a house that used to be there. The smell of the pink roses around the white brick grotto was tropical on this November day. We stopped and talked to a family member, a steward of the property who was working across the road. She said she was glad that we stopped. It was the land of her family, an old plantation, and the grotto was for her grandmother, Mozelle. A truly gifted woman, she said, and I could sense that by her long abandoned grotto, still producing large fragrant coral-colored blossoms in grey autumn. I mentioned the roses. Funny you mention them, the steward told me, clippers in hand.  That's what I'm doin, she said. She explained that the house had been moved, and she was working to clip the roses to propagate them, so that they would fill up the land right there and that smell would permeate. She said back in the day, everyone used to have grottos to Mary, but now you don't see them as much. She pointed out how special the white bricks were. She said maybe, now that the house was not there, that she would move Mozelle's grotto across the road, too. I'll help ya, I told her. When we left, she gave us armfuls of pretty lemons off the old lemon tree.

 

 

Traditional Ecards of Coastal Louisiana

Lomax Fellow and friend Dr. Joshua Caffery released his fascinating book, Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana recently. There were so many amazing songs and one-liners that Dr. Caff includes in this book. Here are a few of my favorites, done in Ecard, Prairie des Femmes fashion. Thank you Dr. Caff!! 

Buy this book:

http://lsupress.org/books/detail/traditional-music-in-coastal-louisiana/

Louisiana French ECards from Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana by Joshua Caffery

The next morning, after the wedding, the beauty looks at the door. The beautiful girl looks at the door, with a big regret.

I am going to the big woods with my jug of moonshine, brass knuckles in my pocket, cards in my hand, and I am looking for nothin but trouble.

Criminal Criminal! The Cajuns of L'anse la Butte have torn up underpants.

Go away sadness! Go throw yourself in the coulee and go so far, never come back to me again!

The beautifyl girl gave me a beautiful bouquet, all garnished with beautiful white jasmine. It's to heal, heal, heal sadness.

Oh wild nightingale! Oh nightingale of the forest!

Let's drink, dear comrades, Let's abandon amour. Let's abandon girls, we'll court them no more.

Oh, he fell in the road, like an unlucky one.

A bouquet of thoughts, at the four corners of the bed. A bouquet of worry.

He said that he wanted to play until he didn't have any more shoes.

Click here to see a few more memes I did from the book.

CajunNet

THE CAJUNNET

The CajunNet is the information source by which South Louisianians communicate and share all information. It is a familial, wireless, omnipresent, omnipotent and sometimes telepathic communication network used for the transfer of a wide range of information concerning South Louisiana gossip, politics and scandal. It is made up of interconnected networks, like spiderwebs in the Basin, the signal of which is most strong in South Louisiana, but the CajunNet boasts thousands of satellite servers worldwide. The CajunNet is the only entity yet found that exceeds 186,000 miles per second. Not only is it fast, unlike its younger cousin the Internet, information gleaned from the CajunNet is checked and cross-checked by many within the web, so it's usually correct. Also unlike the Internet, the CajunNet is run by grandmas.  Similarly to the Internet, sometimes on the CajunNet, you don't know who you are really talking to, everyone is so connected, you could really get in trouble out there.

I am part of the CajunNet, so are you if you have ever gotten gossip from your Nannie, Ti-Tante, classmate, ya friend's mama or your second cousin once removed about a local event before the Main Stream Media covered it, and it turned out true. CajunNet is hotter than the MSM.

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"Dans la Ville Platte, tu peux pas jongler à quelquechose autrement quelq'un d'autre connait." 

(In Ville Platte, you can't even think something before someone else knows.)  

 

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You sneeze in Evangeline Parish, the people in Saint Landry Parish are already saying "God Bless You."

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Some origins of the CajunNet

The CajunNet is the network by which we are all connected, and it seems that we South Louisianians have kept our connections quite a long time. Our ancestors have lived and intermarried for centuries upon centuries, and in many cases were, in fact, the same people. Our interconnection is the base for the strength, reliability and utility of the CajunNet. In a word, cousins.

After the Grand Derangement of 1755, the Acadians found their way back to each other, and to la Louisiane, by an earlier form of the CajunNet phenomena- letters. After the chaotic deportation that split families and sent them across the globe, the network of letters and family connections were unable to be broken, even by genocide, and indeed were used to pull the scattered Acadians back together in Louisiana. 

Before electricity arrived to the far-flung prairies and swamps of Louisiana, people would go to their neighbor's houses to pass the veille, visit and play music. Here is what Jenee Naquin's grandmother said about the origins of the CajunNet:

Jenee: I once asked her (g-maw) if it was true that they had no electricity. She said yes. I said so how did you get the news, no tv, no radio. Did you get the paper? She said,

Oh no, Cher, we would go visit. That is how we got the news. Passe the veille.

I thought it was so funny that that was their method for news - the original gossip circle!

And a precursor to the modern CajunNet!

The prevalence of small towns where people's orbits are in close proximity contributes to the CajunNet. There isn't much going on, and Cajuns like to talk. No matter if its your uncle telling long lies about hunting or fishing trips, the small town Topix Forums, Facebook confessions pages, or that nosy friend that will follow police cars to the scenes of accidents just to report to the servers of the CajunNet...people like to talk, and be in the know.

And so, next time your mama gives you some hometown gossip about people she identifies by their nickname (You know Hog Jaw?), their lineage (You know, Bee à Tante Lou?) or how they are related to you (You know T-Nonc's Daddy, Mister Earl's, brother? Well, his lil sister! She was married to you friend Monette's brother.) When you hear these things and the juicy tidbits that follow, know that you are not just listening to small town talk, but you are taking part in a communion of the vernacular, you are receiving information about your people, you are part of something bigger than all of us: the CajunNet!

Stay Tuned to the PDF for Stories from the CajunNet...

MORE stories from the Cajun Net:

Click here for the story in which Nananne and the Sheriff's wife's CajunNet secret weapon is a quilt.

Click here for a story about MJ's death and the CN. 

Click here to see how the CajunNet helped catch a killa. 

The CajunNet and the Beatle 

CajunNet in Amsterdam