Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Teachers at Prairie des Femmes School

The Opelousas courier (Opelousas, La.), October 16, 1897

1906, Clarion

1916

St. Landry Clarion August 4, 1918

St. Landry Clarion

The star-progress (Opelousas, La.), January 10, 1920

Saint Landry Clarion

The Opelousas courier (Opelousas, La.), February 1, 1890

Prairie des Femmes Beats Port Barre'

The star-progress (Opelousas, La.), September 15, 1920

Monday, June 22, 2026

Pintado Papers Spanish Colonial Plan no. 1487: Carlos Vivant; Opelousas, 1801

Map at the Hive with Mr. Olan 1854

I spoke to Mr. Olan Thibodeaux at the old Hive as I was looking at this map leaning against the wall. He said it was his map, he had given it to the community coffee shop. I spent a lot of time looking at it and photographing it, and Mr. Olan mentioned that it was curious how many women were land owners in the Prairie des Femmes.

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Black Spear Point- Olivier Site

I'd spent a decade or more walking what used to be a mound, now plowed a few times a year, called the Olivier Site. I am friends with the daughter of the owner of this field, which rotates soybeans and sorghum. I monitor this field. It was a prehistoric stone working place at the very edge of the Teche escarpment. The first artifacts I found there were scores of knapping shards, still very fine and sharp after all these years. They were multicolored, and since rock doesn't exist naturally in this prairie delta the imagination wonders to the origins of the white, blue, black, grey and red stone chips. Finding each one was thrilling for me.

I had been told that the neighbors found many artifacts in that field, but I never found more than the knapping pieces and maybe a small broken point or two. They are concentrated on the north edge of the rise of what used to be a great mound.

One day in 2019 I was walking the field as usual. I had never found a full artifact before. I found a white marble that reminded me of the full moon and some knapping and ceramics when all of a sudden I saw a piece of bone in the soil. I don't know what kind of mound was here before, but its likely it was burial. I picked up the piece of broken bone and just held it, out there in the field. It was leg or arm. In that moment I heard in my head, "You're going to find a point." I walked three steps and there was the black spear point on the dirt.