Origins of Goyo

La chasse? Ouais, on a fait ein à la Grande Prairie et ein à le GoYo...le Goyo c'est entre Washington and Grand Prairie, you know the Grand Prairie school? Mais, across from that, that's the GoYo... 

(a hunt? oh yeah, we made one at the Grand Prairie and one at the Goyo. The Goyo is between Washington and the Grand Prairie...)

From time to time people call in to the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program to ask about the origins of the word Goyo. There is doubt among the callers that even the oldest residents of the Goyo know what it means or where it comes from. Some think it is related to gorgoyo the local word for tadpole. Some thought goyo meant "imbecile", but my favorite origin story to date is this one:

It's called Goyo because we say "If you come over here to Goyo and you don't act respectful, you can go-yo butt outa here."

Goyo update: Madame Vidrine says that Goyo was the name of a cousin who lived there, Mr. Goyo Soileau. 

Gumbo Tchoc

 

Mais tu connais quoi c'est un tchoc, hein?
Blackbird, huh?

Un bon gumbo, ça. 

Ho, Jack! 

Si ça fait un gumbo! 

C'est un gumbo q'arette pas!

The Cardinal Blues

The way the the callers to the Tasse de Cafe Radio program speak French is so beautiful, it's like poetry. The following is transcribed from a conversation I recorded last week of the callers talking about different birds.

Les Blues des Cardinaux

Comment tu dis cardinal en français?

Mais, cardinau!

J'en avais un dans mon cours la semaine passée
j'voulais prendre un portrait.
Monsieur a gone
avant j'peux l'attraper le portrait et l'a'oir
il s'est sauvé!
il té 'près scout around
il va r'venir!
je vas peut-être pas le 'oir
Mais il va r'venir!
un vaillant tite oiseau
c'est joli pour les 'oir
et c'est pas souvent tu les 'oir
Tu les 'ois pas un tas!
Mais c'est joli pour 'oir

 Ça aime faire leur 'tite chanson bien tranquil 
Ça donne les blues d'attendre ça
Ça donne l'envie danser!

!

La Bonne Vie Apartments

Ghost Courir

 

Mamou, Louisiana, Mardi Gras 2014

Dirt Dauber Mary

Une Pierre à Tonerre

Monsieur J.D. Soileau de L'anse Bleu always has something interesting to say. Today he was calling about a story he heard from a local lady about the meteorite that hit Louisiana in 1957. Click here for a piece on it from the Bayou Teche Dispatches.


 

Il onvait eu beaucoup peur dan 1957 à soir et là il a eu le meteorite qu'a frappé la Louisiane
Oh wow!
Et y a eu... son mari avait gardé dehors, il dit y a quek-chose, force té brillant et y a un clairité
un bout temp après on a attendu gros train... la maison a manière tremblé et ils on eu beaucoup peur et ils ont etait couché chez son père et sa mère.
Et beaucoup de monde avait beucoup peur et y'en a qu'a tombé à genoux.
Et un qui dit...cinq fois plus gros que le soleil et plue clair que la journée.
Comment tu crois?
Et ça frappait à la Côte Blanche là bas au long du côte le la Louisiane... parceque j'ai regardé sus mon computer et y'avait les pecheurs qu'était après pêcher au soir et ça était pleusieurs jours que leurs oreilles faisait manière mal, c'avait fait un gros train!
Comment tu crois!
Et là, y'avait un morceau qu'avait tombé sus un rig.
No kidding, wow!
Et dedans 1957... tu appelles ça une pierre à tonerre (thunder rock)!
une pierre à tonerre!
Ouais, c'est un meteorite...

 ***********************************************

"Thunder Rock" reminded me of a story I heard from Mr. P. LaHaye recently about the Prairie des Femmes. It seems that years ago he and another researcher were walking around the indian sites in the Prairie and came upon a house at a curve in the road. They asked the woman, who may have been Chat-Tigre's mother, for water. She came out into the front yard and pumped it for them. They thanked her and tried to explain what they were doing by showing her the arrowheads they had found. She immediately motioned to the sky and called them something similar to "thunder rock" and said that they had come from the sky. 

 ***********************************************

A Warning/ Un Advertisement

  

J.D. went on to say that the old people saw the meteorite as un advertisement, or a warning that something was going to happen. My research says that the meteorite came on March 15, 1957, the Ides of March, and Hurricane Audrey came in late June of the same year.

Praise the Lord! Overshare on the Tasse de Cafe

The things you can hear on the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program:





À force y'avait longtemps on l'avait pas attendu! Bonjour F!
Je m'ai fait operé!
Oh ouais? T'as eu une operation?
Ouais... mon colon uh...I had a big mass in ma colon!
Uuuhhh huhh....
Like ma brother!
Alright.
But dey operated on me and I didn't have cancer in the lymph-nodes-
alright...
-in the colon, and not even cancer in da back!!
Alright, we thank you very much for that information, and we hope that you're doing well.
The Lord Saved me!
That's good, great!
A few more years...
That's exactly right I can well remember saying that the Lord was not ready for me some time back, yes.
The doctors said they don't know how dat mass wasn't...
Uh huh... allll right...
SO! All da people who thought I had cancer, I don't have cancer!
Ok, we sure appreciate hearing about that F.
I'm perfectly well.
Alright, Praise the Lord! 

Pietà de Grolee aux Opelousas

Les Blues, Cher

Il avait les blues, chère! Cher Bon Dieu li connait son affaire j't'guarantee!

Quand ils disent c'est p'us pareil, 
ça me donne les blues
d'attendre les cardinaux après chanter
Mais quand-même ça chante
Comme dans les années passées
Ca fait danser
D'entendre les cardinaux 
après chanter.
Quand ils disent c'est p'us pareil
Le monde parle plus en français
J'attendre les cardinaux après chanter
 et le temps après voler

Ashlee Michot, 2014

Prairie Portraits

Here are a few paintings I have done of the Prairie des Femmes in her different robes.

Queen of the Borderlands Journal

Spirit of Prairie des Femmes

Lights on the Prairie

The Sunset Towers

Prairie des Femmes at Night

Here is a link to the first painting I ever did of the PDF

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". They also told me things like it was where the Revolutionary War,  1812 or Civil War widows came to stay, or else the women worked the land when the men left for war. It could have been 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 (ball games?). 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...

No Arrowhead Today

There are three things that I have been searching for in the Prairie des Femmes: a red cardinal feather, an arrowhead, and the origin of the place name, Prairie des Femmes. Despite the PDF being a place of high native traffic back in the day and the dozens of red cardinals that swoop across the road as you drive, I have made the most headway with the name origins and found no arrowheads or red feathers. 

Recently, though, I realized with the help of Mr. P. LaHaye (who has found all kinds of ancient Indian artifacts out here) that I had actually found an Indian clay marble a while back in the oxbow woods. Today we walked down the road and walked a few meters into the woods on an afternoon walk. I had the feeling I might find something, so I brought a short spoon. I looked  and cleared the leaves a little, but with my two little men with me, it wasn't easy to focus on finding anything. I did see a palmetto shoot waving in the wind like a signal, it was being shaken by a small blackberry vine. It should be noted that in the hour we were walking and exploring, no car or truck passed on the Prairie des Femmes Road. The woods are impassible in summer and still a little wild in winter, full of spiny trees and palmettos. Soon we turned to exit onto the road and right where we did, there was a cardinal feather in the gravel on the side of the road. Gettin close!!

Prairie des Femmes Prairie Map

LaGrange Garden of Flowers

The house makes sure you understand it was for the workers and inhabitants who carved the curved rafters and wall-papered the walls in flowers, for the women who planted the holly and Narcissus and wisteria that bloom wildly in the dooryard. The whole place is still white, green and red. The green tar paper, the exposed whitewash, the chipping red chimney and rust. The enormous abandoned holly bush in the front has glossy green leaves and red berries. The clumps of paperwhites along where the walkway was are bright green and their white blooms leave a musky scent through the woods, even on New Year's Day. Even inside the house, flowers still bloom: 

Prairie des Femmes Girl on Horseback

If you listen hard, you can hear them talking, and then Nonc talking about paneling.

I was standing in the sunlit doorway of the old Lagrange House on a warm Sunday afternoon, the second one of the New Year, 2014. I had come to the oldest standing homestead in the Prairie des Femmes again to record her and show her to my friend Nonc, who studies these things and was reporting to me about the bousillage fibers he was finding behind the paneling.

I was listening for trouble. I have permission to be there, but it's not my place. That place belongs to another realm. On the road I was hearing voices and dogs and a 4-wheeler. Then, like a dream, I heard the gallop of a bande of horses and the sharp Creole yelps of the men. I wanted to take cover, but realized they couldn't see me, or could they? Then I thought one of the men was yelling at the others to come and see the house. I got nervous and jumped down into the overgrowth.  I heard the neighbors' dogs across the field bark loudly as a dozen riders galloped by, men, women and children, at full speed. I could see the riders through the thin winter woods and started moving toward the road. I got some pretty bad blackberry bush scratches on my arms, but I made my way out of the woods to the road where I could see them making the 3rd turn. Me and Nonc jumped in the truck and followed them to the bayou, where I knew they would corral at the new vine fence. On the ride we watched them, the Creole men and Indian boys, gallop around curves along the Bayou Bourbeux I watched the brothers I know cut across orange winter fields on horseback and carefully through tree lines, the boys, and this time, their sister on a cream colored horse, real Prairie des Femmes.

"Love Y'All"

Saint Gabriel Store

I was amazed at how much this picture looked like a black and white photograph...minus the red car.

The Room Party

When we moved one room of an 100 year old cypress cabin out here to the land at Prairie des Femmes, we had a room party, or a few room parties. Here are a few shots from what I think was the first room party in 2004.
 

Wild Turkey Jam

food table and decor by moi, Louis and Anya

BFFS jammin, Ryan and Louis 

this little girl is almost 21 now;-)

The room party

The Matthews boys and Armand

Louis talking to Papa Lou and Granny

Papa Lou Taps a Toe to Anya, Ricard and Ryan

Inside the room

The Lovely Room that is now my living room and kitchen, and Louie and his Mama

PDF decor

Little Panoramic of the Room

Action Shot

The Room Party 2004