La Toussaint et les bénédiction des cimetières

La Toussaint et les bénédictions des cimetières  
Transcribed from La Tasse de Cafe' Radio program 10-27-14

Pour l'église Our Lady Queen of all Saints 

Samedi le premier de novembre
à le cimetière Gates of Heaven
en arièrre de l'église,  

bénédiction après la messe de quatre heures.

Dimanche à une heures de l'après-midi 

ils vont benir le cimetière de T-Mamou, 

et là à trois heures de l'après-midi 

ils vont benir le cimetière du platin. 

Ça c'est à travers de Our Lady Queen of All Saints.

Et là pour l'église de Sacré Cœur et Saint Joseph  

bénédiction de le cimetière  

samedi le premier de novembre à douze heures de midi 

et au Evangeline Memorial après la messe de quatre heures. 

La bénédiction de le cimetière de Belair Cove 

et là à cinq heures de l'après-midi, 

samedi le premier de novembre 

à le Vieux Cimitière de la Ville Platte.

Dimanche le deux d'novembre 

après la messe de huit heures et demi 

ils vont benir le chagrin 

et le cimetière de Saint Joseph à Belair Cove, 

après la messe de dix heures à Sacre Cœur 

ils vont benir le cimetière de Sacré Cœur 

et dimanche à midi le cimetière de l'anse de Tate. 

Soyez sur de gardez ça en idée!

Tasse Expressions: You got ya whistle in Basile

When my daddy would hear someone whistling, he would say, he got his whistle in Basile. Il a eu son siffler à Basile. I told that to my children my whole life, "you got ya whistle in Basile!"

C'est fraiche, ça refraiche.

Mais ça c'est Dot à nous-autres, ça?
Hein!? 
Ça c'est Dot à nous-autres?
Ouais!

Le vent de Basile... le gros Vents d' grand Basile!
(the wind comes from Basile in March, April... from the southwest...a dry wild, with dust, a pleasant wind...also called les vents de carême?)

Daddy and all his friends would gather at daddy's every afternoon and drink coffee under the pecan tree, and exchange lil expressions:

Cher! Ça c'est trop de sucre pour dix sous! 

Fais-attention, lâche pas la poule parce que tu va peut-être attrappé le guime.  

Tu peux pas montrer les nouveaux trick à un vieux mulet.

Pareille comme tu dis, tu peux amener le cheval à l'eau pour boire mais tu peux pas le faire boire. Ça c'est pour sûr!

A Word from Hill on Jarred Roux

Hill: Coute! Vous-autres après parler pour du roux? Y'avais Gerald qu'té après dire qu'il sauvait de l'argent à faire son roux à lui-même? J'connais que j'ai jamais fait un roux depuis Kary à commencé à faire son roux. C'est aisé et tu peux pas le faire meilleur! Je pense y'en a pas un tas du monde qui peux le faire meilleur que ça! Mais j'connais pas mais...je me rapelle bien que lui et son Papa, defain Arcange, ils ont essayé pleusieurs batch avant ça fait comme ça voulait, tu connais? Ça fait, j'ai jamais fait depuis là il a commencé à faire...à venrde du roux comme dit le bougre!

Jim: C'est un tas plus aisé quand tu ouvre le bocal-le, la jarre!

Hill: Si tu arrives là-bas-là, et il est après le faire, et tu les vends chaud! Jack, il se dissolve un tas meilleur, tu connais? Ohhh Lord! C'est bon affreux! Je pense tu peux te sauver de l'argent, mais... avec le roux que moi j'use... ça fait pas rien que je paye un ti brin plus...

Hill: Listen! Y'all talking about roux? Was it Gerald sayin he saved money by making his roux himself? I know that I've never made a roux since Kary started to make his roux. It's easy and you can not do better! I think there aren't not too many who can do better than that! But I don't know but... I recall that he and his dad, the late, Arcange, they tried several batches before it made as they  wanted, you know? So, really I haven't made any since they started making it- since they started selling it, like they say...

Jim: It is a lot easier when you open the jar - the jar!

Hill: If you arrive there and they are making it, and you buy them hot! Jack, it dissolves a lot better, you know?! Ohhh Lord! It's awfully good! I think you can save your money, but... with the amount of roux that I use... it's nothing if I pay one lil strand more...

 

Queen Evelyna of the Chateau Pecan Sololiquy

We was crossed up dat time! How y'all doin?
Y'all looked at dem pecan trees? I just been talkin 'bout em, I got a lot of trees at my house, dey hadn't been bearin, neither, too much, now maybe ma son when he go out dere to where ma house at, I'm at the Chateau, you know, but out there they have a lot of pecan trees that haven't been bearin for several years, there, too good. They useta make a lot but they told me there's a certain time... I tell you, if you treat em, they got a way you put that.. uh, whatcha call dat stuff around da tree... lime! And dey said it would make but you put dat around dere, don't put it right at it, the tree, but you gotta treat em, but I think they round in October I believe.. or January 1, whatever it is, but I mean, das what they put around em to make em bear! But lately my trees ain't been makin many and I got a lot of trees around out there.. round where I stayed out there... Bayou Chicot...Where the Wittington store was there, I got a grey trailerhouse ova dere, right dere, across the road on the right, dey was on the left I was on the right, that's where I lived right dere, ma family's still dere. But anyway dat pecan tree, dey say some years dey don't make good! Every other year, das what dey say! So I said dey got a way to treat em! Even I see the man talkin with Gary Arnold, got em talkin 'bout dem trees, you put dat lime around em, but you put it so many inches from da tree, and you make a lil' round hole, you know you make a lil hole and den put dat down in dere and den cover it up, den, if it's dry you water it. But if it rain, you know, that'll make it go down into the ground but nowaday, mine don't make hardly nothin no mo'. I beem needin some pecans, but my son dere, he ain't tole me nothin' dis year but he probably go out dere in a few days. And then some of the trees are too old, when dey get too old I don't think they bear too good no mo'. Yeah, it's like us old, when you get arthritis, you know, that makes it difficult! Y'all have a good day I'mma let y'all go! Take care now.

Thing they should sell at the Prairie des Femmes Store

I went there once on la Fete de la Chandeleur to grab nearly all of their eggs and milk because we were short for crepe making at Beau Chene High School. I think I also bought a Mexican coke. They should sell basics like that at the Prairie des Femmes store, and other stuff like bags of Creole Rose rice and cans of Rotel, white cherry icees and boudin balls and boules rouges in big glass jars on the counter, of course, but if I had my way, this is what they would also sell at the Prairie des Femmes store (on the old Indian footpath that is now Hwy 93) but because that spot is built on an ancient mound site, everyone around here says nothing takes there and stores can't stay in business. No business, no matter how successful, lasts more than a year or two at that location. 

1. powder puffs of thistle tops used to apply powder of the crushed Cherokee rose
2. fresh pucks of wax-myrtle wax 
3. bay and beeswax candles
4. cypress blood, tincture of cypress sap, bottled and corked
5. Spanish moss in a can, match included 
6. iron tines of the plow for t-fer making
7. hats and fans of the latanier for ladies to keep cool in the summertime
8. smudge sticks of indian sage, lemonbalm, rabbit tobacco
9. dried teas of herbe a cabri, mugwort, mongrea
10. sasafrass root
11. file' powder
12. comb-in prairie des femmes honey
13. pecan shell berceuses pour les ti-catins
14. dried French mulberries by the lb
15. fresh mulberries, dewberries, blackberries in season
16. white mulberries of the Bayou Bourbeau in season
17. elderberry syrup for the winter and dried elderberry flowers
18. wooden beads and raw leather for leather work
19. Laguiole knives with the bee and goat punch
20. black taribi, cabresse
21. bousillage soap bar
22. red powder made from the crushed shells of lady bugs
23. job's tear and chinaberry rosaries
24. blow guns of lilas parasol
25. shovels
26. seeds
27. Poo yaille fertilizer
28. hammers
29. basins and buckets of all sizes
30. rolls of thick brown paper
31. cast iron cookware
32. a directory of the names of local traiteurs on a cork board
33. Louisiana literature and music
34. quilts
    
35. A Prairie des Femmes Field Guide
36. ceramic shards from the field, embossed with gold
37. plantain t-fer salve
38. homgrown fruits and vegetables
39. lemonbalm tingture
40. loose manglier tea

Don't try to pull in or turn around at the old Prairie des Femmes store, though! They got the driveway lined with nail boards. 

 


 

The Enchanted Prairie des Femmes

And have you seen the dragon who guards the bridge at Frozard?

I knew the Prairie des Femmes was enchanted because she was so unassuming, and so one day we set out across Monsieur Vacheur's  back pastures and then on to the other side, where there is a little grove of trees in a small l'anse of the prairie. There we found all kinds of evidence of fairy activity: acorn caps fashioned into hats and piles of hickory nuts like pyramids, the abandoned wings of the demoiselle fly, their forlorn iridescence catching my eye. There were spider webs along the ground (the tiny elves like to take their morning drink from the dew that gathers in droplets) and mossy green couches where they reclined in the roots of a cypress tree. There were new leaves freshly impaled on twigs scattered about (fairy flags) champignons of red and grey, and even green rings where they had danced the new moon before. But to be sure, I saw no fairies or elves or nains or even lutins, only their evidence. I knew that they were there, though, because after my journey to the l'anse, at dusk I could see the thin plumes of smoke rising like grey threads above the treeline; at night, the candle-flicker of their fires in the wood. Sometimes, I could hear the Indian drums and knew they danced to them in fairy rung:

In the spring, we went onto the ancient Bayou Bourbeau that borders the enchanted prairie. Up to the Grand Chemin halfway to Opelousas we went to put the canoes in the bayou. We came all the way down, behind the Academy of the Sacred Heart, we rested at the old wooden bridge covered in white blackberry flowers, and stopped to pick a few of the early dewberries.  Down the Bourbeau's green banks at narrow spots there were so many adolescent black moccasins, that they struck at the paddles and at the boat from the water and banks alike, until we made a game of bopping their hissing heads with our paddles. We floated along under a stripped umbrella and found white spider lilies and picked one for the mast of the ship. Further down where the brown water widened, there were white mulberry trees lining both banks of the muddy Bourbeau, and we picked and shook the trees until the berries fell like fat pink and white drops of rain.

 

Then one day in a rush I chanced upon a curious fellow, a centaur on the Prairie des Femmes road! He was all in brown and bareback'd with no identifying qualities that would place him in this century or the last. I had to stop to speak to him, to make sure he was not an apparition (as they are as likely on the Prairie des Femmes road as a centaur)  and though I spoke, he gave a sheepish smile but never replied except for a neighing sigh I heard as I turned. As he rounded the third curve, I snapped this photograph, and surely if I had not, you would believe my story or that the Prairie des Femmes was truly enchanted and maybe neither would I.

But then on the morning of the winter solstice, I received the biggest conformation of all! I happened to pass the Queen of the Prairie des Femmes in her grand Chariot en Paille, led by her entourage of black curs. She was wearing her magenta mantle, trimmed in brown furs! She did not stop, but gave me a gentle nod, for she was working to move the hay, for queens of this prairie must tend the herds, even on the darkest day! 

Things I learned on la Tasse

On Swings:

In Ville Platte we say balance, mais...galance... Galance? I don't recall ever hearing that. I don't know where this French comes from... so I guess that comes from that Thibodeaux French. Just a-swangin... Oh serait joli d'être après se balançer, avec une bonne tasse café avec un tit vent nord t'après souffler.. Hot dog! Ça serait la vie!


From the French News:

The Louisiana Swine Festival,  va avoir, jusqu'à à minuit, la musique par un D. J., Lucky Lady, Bad Weather et High Roller. Tout ca va prendre place en gym à Basile.

...Le police des Opelousas dit que vingt-trois ans d'âge Marcus DeJean avait ménacé quelqu'un avec un pistolet mercredi au soir avant il avait lead l'officier d'un course à pied. 

Random Stuff:


le premier qu'a éné -first born
le nichoix- last born 

Moi j'suis maître et major, et je me berce moi-même, ouais.

 Les jeunes persones ils ont oublié la politesse. C'est vrai. Et c'est le parti de notre faut aussi! Pareil comme pour apprendre le fraiçais c'est notre faute.

Pour ce-là de vous qui sont après planner d'aller à la chasse aux chevreuils, vous-autres peux trouver le maïs de chevreuil, la mélasse, de des food plot mix et tout ça là-là. Ils ont aussi les ATV spreaders au Evangeline Feed and Seed!

Le forecast à Dave et le forecast à Liz...

Daddy and all his friends would gather at daddy's every afternoon and drink coffee under the pecan tree, and exchange lil expressions:

Cher! Ça c'est trop de sucre pour dix sous! 

Fais-attention, lâche pas la poule parce que tu va peut-être attrappé le guime.  


Tu peux pas montrer les nouveaux trick à un vieux mulet.

Pareille comme tu dis, tu peux amener le cheval à l'eau pour boire mais tu peux pas le faire boire. Ça c'est pour sûr! 

Ebola in the Louisiana French News

D'autres nouvelles à travers de l'état, les leaders de la Louisiane, dit ils avaient devise un state-wide response plan pour proteger la Louisiane si il y'aurais un cas de Ebola. Ils ont dit ils sont après travailler avec les hôpitaux pour identifier les certaines locations de traitment et ça veut dire ça icitte là-là, l'officier de santé de l'état dit ses officials sont après rester in touch avec les universités, les imports et le Coastguard pour track équand le monde après rentrer de notre pays avec le Ebola outbreak. Jusqu'à asteur pas d'cas avait éte rapporté dedans la Louisiane.

In other news across the state, the leaders of Louisiana say that they have devised a state-wide response plan to protect Louisiana if there is an Ebola case. They said they are working with hospitals to identify certain treatment centers, and they want to say this here: the the state health officer says that his officials are staying in touch with universities, imports (?) and the Coastguard to track when people are returning to our country with the Ebola outbreak. Until now, no cases have been reported in Louisiana.

Deal Avec Le Evangeline Bank and Trust Company

L'Evangeline Bank and Trust Company 

Eux-Autres sont là par rapport à vous-autres, monde. 

Il veut vous servir dans tout les manières té possible 

Quand vous-autres a besoin de faire un loan 

avec le viallant monde 

Allez pis find out 

Ça un tas du monde connait dejà 

L'Evangeline Bank and Trust Company 

Est la place pour vous deal avec deal avec, deal avec 

L'Evangeline Bank and Trust Company 

C'est la place pour vous deal avec

As-tu jamais flush ton hot water tank?

 
Mister Floyd recommends flushing your hot water tank periodically.  


J'ai une suggestion, peut-être, au monde qu'après écouter. C'est flush les hot water tank. J'connais pas si le monde qu'après écouter a jamais flush leur hot water tank, mais je te garontee, si jamais tu l'flush, ça supris, avec la rouille et les chemicals qui sort de le bas de ce tank-le, et ça, ça affect ton eau une manière ou l'autre aussi bien! Et ça fait le tank durer pour plus longtemps, je pense, et ça va certainment improver la couleur et la qualité de l'eau qui sort de ton hot water tank! Quand l'eau sort claire à l'autre boute, tu tournes le faucet-le off. Tu peux mettre un paper towel en dessus parqe-que l'eau il va couler un ti peu là. Mais c'est une chose on devrait tout faire si on veut protéger notre hot water tank, et je voulais juste passer ça au monde à ce matin. Ça c'est notre plumbing tip pour l'aujourd'hui!

The Ditches of the PDF

Arrowheading on the Plowed Mound, October 7, 2014

       

Nonc Bob est La!

 

Et là, tu peux le suivre asteur sus l'Facebook!

C'est bien! 

Sur l'Facebook, Nonc Bob est là! 

Sur l'Facebook, c'est bien! 

Sur l'Facebook, Nonc Bob est là! 

Nonc Bob est là! Nonc Bob est là! 

Sur l'Facebook, c'est bien! 

Sur l'Facebook, Nonc Bob est là! 

Sur l'Facebook, Nonc Bob est là! 

Nonc Bon est là! C'est bien!

Flint Shards at the Olivier Site

Research of the name Prairie des Femmes has pointed me to a particular field near my house, a big open field where milo and soybeans are rotated.  It's been farmed for decades at least, but it sure is curious how the whole thing has been left open and otherwise undeveloped. As if there is memory there. It was brought to my attention that there is a slight elevation in the middle of this field that is a plowed Indian mound, possibly a site of the "village" of native women la Prairie des Femmes is named for.

After I found out about the location, I took every chance to pass by this field, in complete awe, seeing at different times of year how the grain undulated out toward the center. You couldn't see it at certain angles, but there is surely a mound out there, even though it has been plowed hundreds of times. I would idle down the dirt road that skirts the south side, I would even stop sometimes just to look and maybe take a picture when the rise was visible, but I never dared to go out into the site until I talked to a neighbor who encouraged me to go, saying that no one would protest my presence there. So I waited for them to plow, and it's as if I felt it when they did; I had a hunch. Sure enough, it was bare dirt, the mound like a long still wave out there. I went. I was woozy to be out there on that sacred ground.  But I was too focused on my children and every crunch of gravel from the road to concentrate. I did feel that place, though. I took the clods of dirt in my hands and let them break to the ground. I looked out across the land, purple in sunset, to watch a lone starling flit around, or, to jump, startled by the wind's song in a surviving stalk, or the buzz of an insect, the call of the killdeer. But the field was dusty and coarsely plowed. I needed a big rain to wash it all down and reveal what was underneath. I took a clod of dirt from the apex and went home, happy. I waited a day, and as if on cue, the first cool front of the season came, hand in hand with the opening of squirrel weekend. The front had woken me up at dawn with the thought of arrowhead hunting. The cool snap had everyone out and feeling good. Harvest and the scent of fires were in the air. The moon waxed past half, and I took the chance to go back to the site. This time, the rain had smoothed things out, but the mud was so sticky it felt like I was hauling ten pound boots across the expanse, and my children were covered. We settled on collecting a bag of the biggest and sweetest pecans I have ever found which were falling from the nearest tree to the mound, and even picked up a few pieces of white ceramic from the mud before going home to hose off.

When I told my neighbor that I'd found no artifacts, just big pecans after the rain he said, well you must be lookin with ya eyes closed! I know for a fact that there are shards all over that north side, right over the hump... that field is full of shards.

Well, novice as I was at all this, I didn't know what a shard was, I was looking for arrowheads! I anxiously went back anyway that evening, after the field had dried a little more. This would be the time, I knew it. I knew where to go, I had appeased (or at least tried to appease) the ancestors. Third time's the charm, I said. I started scanning the northside of the mound. The north wind blew through the good pecan tree so loudly it broke my concentration, and there were squirrel hunters in the woods to both sides of the site, their lone shots ringing every few minutes, also breaking the calm of my mud scanning. I felt like I had been training for this my whole life, though, as I normally scan the ground for things (like rocks and snakes), and have found treasures in the dirt (the first was a tiny, ornate key in the compact dirt of the neighbor's dooryard) since I was young. Still not seeing anything in the mud, I began picking up anything that seemed out of sorts, anything hard, not mud or vegetation, and put it in my pocket. Then I saw a little rock... hmmm, it was flat and white and seemed insignificant, a chip. I felt it between my fingers before hastily dropping it behind my back... just as I was bending over and saw two more in front of me. Shards, I thought. I began picking them up. This is the place. They were not densely scattered, but by the time I left, I had a pocketful of strangely shaped rocks, two smooth white marbles that reminded me of the full moon and a planet, white ceramic pieces, and twenty small, very sharp flint shards from arrowhead making at the site. They are all in pastels, sharp as shark's teeth, like jagged wampum, each one impossibly thin and complex. Their texture is so foreign to me, so unlike what I usually find in Louisiana mud, it is old, old rock, traded and chipped centuries, even millennia ago. I now keep the colorful assortment together in a small ceramic dish, examining their elegant shapes and qualities with my fingertips. I find I like their vibration so much when they are stirred, their dry rasp, it's so quiet it's almost like a whipser.

Squirrel Season Warning: C'est Pas Des Bébelles

La grande fête de la Paroisse Evangeline
La fête des écureuils!
La saison des écureuils
Va commencer officialment demain matin.

À tous ce vous les chasseurs
Qu'après nous écouter
On veut souhaite vous-autres va se comporter
a'oir un bon temps
et rappellez-vous de 

Les fusils et des armes
C'est pas des bébelles.
C'est pas des bébelles. 
Les fusils et des armes
C'est pas des bébelles.
C'est pas des bébelles.
Les fusils et des armes
C'est pas des bébelles.
C'est pas des bébelles.
C'est pas des bébelles.

Vent dans l'arbre dans la PDF

Les vents dans cet arbre pendant que j'faisait du arrowheading à ce matin

Un Ti Buzz, you know?

Tu connais
Quand ti manges
Dessus les jalapenos bourés, le
Ça, ça donne 

Un ti buzz, tu connais?
Un ti buzz, tu connais?
Un ti buzz, tu connais?
Un ti buzz, tu connais?

Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers?

Ça, ça donne 
Un ti buzz pimenté
Un ti buzz, pimenté
Un ti buzz, tu connais?
Un ti buzz, pimenté.

The Plowed Mound

the Apex and the Moon

I have always imagined, when I looked out over open water, of all of the fantastic sea creatures that are just below the surface unseen. It's the same out here in the prairie where one can see the undulation of the ground, the swells of earth, and knows the history in the dirt, the treasures below the surface.

When I venture to ask a local elder about the Prairie des Femmes' origins or where I can find an arrowhead, they direct me to this field, which is on a bayou path that I am familiar with.

You can't see it from certain angles, but when you do see it, it is unmistakable; there was a large mound here. The earth swells as a wave, climbing two or three feet gradually, and forming a clear apex out toward the center. It was disorienting to be there, like being on holy ground. I have passed on idle so many times but never stopped. 

It's the harvest time. Just last week I passed the field in question and it was knee deep with weeds grown up in the weeks after the harvest. But the fields on this side of the PDF have been getting plowed, so I had the feeling that it had been, also. I waited until the cool of sunset to go out there. I took my boys, sat them down at the treeline with a bag of potato chips and a pig in a blanket each and told them to stay put while I tramped off into the field. 

I looked around and around, walking, looking down, listening for trucks that passed, watching the little red and white spots of my children against the black of the tree line, yelling at them occasionally or hearing them playing. I was unprepared for arrowhead hunting in my old red leather loafers, now full of fine dirt, as I had sunk eight inches in places as I walked. At the apex of the mound, which is not extremely pronounced, I took some pictures. I detected a death smell, very faintly, yet clearly. Surely from a field mouse crushed under the plow, I thought, but I could not help to think of the place and wonder what it really was.  I picked up clods, but found no stone, no ceramic. I walked crushing the clods in my hands and letting the dust fall. At the high point I found a dark clod of earth, cooler and fresher than that rest, and put it in my pocket. 

It seemed to me strange that I was so worshiping this land, an ironic time for me to come there, the permission and the occasion of the harvest coming at the same time that I have been fuming daily about a near neighbor back on my side of the prairie who is excavating a pond and trucking out dozens of Mack trucks a day of Prairie des Femmes dirt to sell, I assume. I hear the grumbling and beeping for twelve hours a day, I can see the machinery. It's officially started to annoy me, not only the noise way back here in the peaceful prairie, but that they were trucking out the land.  The Prairie des Femmes, being unceremoniously trucked out, and I had to listen to it all day. Selling earth was taboo to me, I realized, especially this dirt. 

I believe it is sacred ground, and it has been desecrated to a point. People have built their own homes on these high places, plowed them repeatedly, dumped and littered them, or else built roads over them, as there are a few roads in the PDF that undulate up over a mound and back down again.

I left as the reds of sunset were fading to oranges and purples. I had found nothing but a dark clod of earth from the apex, but what Frozard had said was true: no one messed with me. Now I needed is a big rain...

the rise of the plowed mound

la terre et mon soulier rouge

Sept Aigrettes