Today in Cajun English: 3-D Hologram Maker

3-D hologram maker! 

You tink an object is dere 

But it's not really dere! 

You gotta see dis in person!

Old Saying about Easter and Weather

The old saying I always heard: wait 'til Easter finishes, the weather will straighten out. That's right, I remember my mom said  

Quand jour de pâques va passer le temps va se nettoyer. 

Alright, well, that's... on dirait je me rapelle d'ça aussi.

Our Lady of Cotton and Chataignier

Best Stop Madonnas

                    Best Stop Pietà

  Mother and Child of the Best Stop 

        Our Lady of the Best Stop

At the Feet of Our Lady of the Best Stop 

Good Friday

Un goût de cafe pour fumer!

Et des fois le café té assez fort tu pourrais mettre une cullière dans la tasse et la cullière restait debout. 

Kaw!!!That's strong! 

And sometimes, like ma dad, he'd make a pot of coffee in the morning and là ça rechauffé quand il buvait une 'tite tasse, une 'tite tasse café, demie 'tite tasse, demie tasse, une demie-demie tasse, et là ça c'était juste assez pour fumer, tu connais? 
Hahahahahaa! 
Un goût de café pour fumer!


Sounds like someone I know!

Prairie des Femmes Topo Map

Bayou des Femmes

A while back my friend Jo Vidrine, who works with the Bayou Vermilion District keeping the bayou clean, tagged a photograph on his Instagram account (@youwillknowwhen) with the tag #bayoudeshommes (Bayou of the Men). The photo was of a bunch of dead red crawfish heads floating in the bayou. I thought the name was an awesome comparison to Prairie des Femmes (Prairie of the Women). Bayou des Hommes recalled for me the work that Jo V and John Oliver literally did in the brown and dark canals of the Bayou Vermilion, but also of the darker, more metaphorical things that we as mankind have done to the bayou.



 Check out www.bayoudeshommes.blogspot.com

Recently Jo and I decided to join forces and mix names to create an art show called Bayou des Femmes. It was held April 12, 2014 at Astra Modern Market in downtown Lafayette. We showed photographs of both of our realms, Jo's parents Mr. John and Mrs. Jane Vidrine played music, Reve Coffee Roasters made a special Bayou des Femmes blend and The Loving Cup did a pop-up coffee bar. We had beer, nests, glow in the dark Mary statues, and a lot of fun. It was a great success and I am so glad Jo and I decided to get together and have a show because the themes of our sites worked perfectly together. 

Here is the audio of an interview we did with Judith at KRVS about the show:


http://krvs.org/post/apres-midi-april-7-joint-exhibit-astra-modern-market-gallery-art-walk-sat-april-12. 

Bayou des Femmes is a collaborative art show of the work of Bayou des Hommes and Prairie des Femmes, blogs run by two young French-speaking Louisianians. Born in juxtaposition out of deep love of place and also as an outlet from the reality of daily life in modern south Louisiana, Bayou des Femmes is an exploration of the timelessness of our homeland, and a reflection of the relationship between nature and culture, prairie and bayou,  homme et femme.
 

 

The man, the muse, the parrain: John Oliver poses with his panoramic

Prairie des Femmes

Gleaux Marie

Pouvoir: Homme et Femme!

photo cred @M. Ryan Dejean

 

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. I like being on holy ground. I have passed on idle so many times. I have stopped, too, a handful of times, to photograph the elevation from afar, but I never dared to go out on the field until I happened to correspond online with a local arrowhead hunter, my neighbor up the road. He confirmed again that this was the place, and that indeed there was an old man who walked the field looking at the dirt after they'd plowed and a hard rain had come. He said to just park and go walk. Nobody's gonna mess with you and if they do, just apologize, tell them what you doin. You lookin for an arrowhead. The worst they can do is tell you to get the hell outa there, but... there? Nah. People know what that place is. No one's gonna mess with you. 

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 treeline, 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

Good Friday at Prairie

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.

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: