Cajun Companion:

An Audio Guide to the Cajun Document Exhibition


Welcome to Cajun Companion! Through selected photographs, this audio guide explores important aspects of South Louisiana’s people, history, and culture. If you are in the Cajun Document exhibition, look for the symbol next to the selected photograph for the corresponding stop. You may also enjoy this guide from anywhere on your mobile device.

#1
Introduction
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Transcript: Introduction

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Cajun Document! In this exhibit, you will view photographs of Louisiana’s Acadiana region, taken by Douglas Baz and Charles Traub in 1973 and 1974. These photographs offer windows into the complex history and diverse cultures of South Louisiana. This audio guide provides insight into selected photographs that illustrate important aspects of the region’s history and culture.

While the photographers set out to capture the rich traditions of the French-speaking Cajun communities of South Louisiana, it is important to note that the people and places you see in this exhibit are not only Cajun. Represented in these photos are the diverse European, African, Creole, and Native American cultural roots of the region.

This map situates the photographs in this exhibit geographically, and the specific communities you’ll be looking at are marked here. Also notice the areas on the map colored orange. This represents the ongoing disappearance of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, a process already well underway in the 1970s. Today, the state of Louisiana loses about a football field’s worth of land every hour, distorting the classic “boot” shape of the state. This has and will continue to profoundly affect the people who call southern Louisiana home.

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#2
Acadian History
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Transcript: Introduction

Background: Acadian History

The Acadians and their descendants settled and thrived in what are now called the Maritime Provinces of eastern Canada beginning in the 17th century. Hailing mainly from the French provinces of Aquitaine, Brittany, and Normandy, these men and women braved long sea voyages to reach North America and an unforgiving climate after arrival. Once there, Acadian settlement coalesced around two locations: Port-Royal and Grand Pré, both in Nova Scotia.

The Acadians quickly made lasting economic, military, and familial ties with the native Mi’kmaq, many of whom converted to Catholicism and married into the Acadian community. This allegiance was beneficial to both groups, as much of the 17th and 18th centuries saw cyclical conflict with Great Britain and its North American colonies.

Various Acadian settlements would fall under British control throughout the 17th century. The British demanded that the Acadians renounce their Catholic faith and swear oaths to the British crown. Many Acadians refused. In 1755, the British began to forcibly expel the Acadians from their home, an event known as Le Grand Dérangement, or the Great Upheaval.

The Acadians were dispersed to the British American colonies, England, France, and the Caribbean. Many died along the way. Several groups arrived in Spanish Louisiana in the 1760s. Another 1,600 Acadians relocated from France in 1785. In total, about 3,000 Acadians settled in Louisiana.

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#3
Creole
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Transcript: Creole

Creole

Common monikers like “Cajun Country” and “Acadiana” can sometimes obscure the diversity of people and their shared cultural traditions in South Louisiana. The unidentified woman in this photo is labeled as a Creole who lives in the town of Mansura. Avoyelles Parish, where Mansura is located, is one of the 22 parishes officially designated as Acadiana, but before the mid-20th century, most French-speaking people in the region, Black or white, would have identified as Creole. The term “Creole” has a long and complex history in Louisiana. The word originally referred to someone born in colonial Louisiana and did not confer a racial designation. It was an ethnic identification based around the French language, Catholic religion, and nativity in Louisiana. People who identified as Creole could be white, Black, or multiracial. As race relations shifted over time, the term was abandoned by many white Creoles but maintained by Creoles of color, like the woman in the picture. Creoles have contributed substantially to the cultural practices of the Acadiana region, including food, music, and traditions like Mardi Gras. Some of these contributions are harder to measure, but no less significant. For Creoles, a strong sense of belonging to their community has always been very critical, and this is certainly true of South Louisiana culture today.

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#4
Native American Basketry
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Transcript: Native American Basketry

Native American Basketry

Among the diverse people of South Louisiana are the descendants of the first inhabitants of the region—Native Americans. Pictured here, Rosa Jackson Pierite, a woman of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe, holds two baskets she is working on. Mrs. Pierite was originally from Indian Creek, a pan-tribal community of Choctaw, Biloxi, Chatot, and Tunica near Alexandria, Louisiana. She recalled travelling in the 1920s with her mother and sisters to Alexandria to sell baskets on the street corners. In this respect, her story is typical of Native American artisans in Louisiana at that time. In the early 20th century, when indigenous people were shut out from economic and educational opportunities, the sale of handmade baskets, mostly to white tourists, offered a way of providing for the community.

The baskets themselves are part of one of the most ancient craft traditions in the southern United States. Requiring significant technical skill, this is an art form that allows for both cultural and individual artistic expression. Although no longer a major source of income, basketry continues among Louisiana Native American artisans, where it represents an unbroken link to the deep past, a tradition passed on through many generations.

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#5
Zydeco
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Transcript: Zydeco

Zydeco

Zydeco evolved out of Creole dance music with its roots in the blending of West African and European musical traditions in South Louisiana. The name derives from “les haricots,” or “beans,” shortened from a Creole expression found in many songs: “les haricots sont pas sales,” or “the beans aren’t salty.” While sharing much in common with Cajun music, zydeco is marked by its strong percussion and syncopated rhythms. It was more heavily influenced by blues and rhythm-and-blues in the 20th century, whereas Cajun music tended to incorporate Western swing and country. The genre conventions of the modern recording industry have done much to obscure the shared origins of the various musical traditions of rural Louisiana.

Zydeco’s signature blend of Creole dance hall and American popular music emerged in the mid-20th century in Texas cities like Port Arthur and Houston, where many Creoles had moved for employment in the oil industry. To the piano accordion and washboard were added rhythm-and-blues elements like an electric rhythm section for a highly danceable, propulsive sound. Lyrics are sung in a mix of Creole French and English. The greatest innovator of this new style was the accordionist, singer, and bandleader Clifton Chenier. Clifton, along with his brother, Cleveland, seen in the photo, adapted the traditional washboard into the modern froittoir, or scrub board, consisting of a corrugated metal plate that the player wears over his shoulders.

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#6
Clifton Chenier
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Transcript: Clifton Chenier

Clifton Chenier

Clifton Chenier, the “King of Zydeco,” was born in 1925 near Opelousas, Louisiana. He learned to play the accordion from his father, who worked as a sharecropper. In the 1940s he started playing dance halls in Louisiana with his brother, Cleveland, before relocating to Texas in the early 1950s. The Cheniers toured on the “chitlin circuit,” a loose affiliation of Black-friendly venues across the South. In 1955 Clifton Chenier recorded his first major hit, “Ay Tete Fee,” which established him briefly as a national R&B act. But his career struggled alongside the ascendancy of rock ’n’ roll, and Chenier returned to Louisiana for several years.

Upon the recommendation of blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins, Chenier and his Red Hot Louisiana Band was signed to Arhoolie Records, which released the single “Ay Ai Ai” in 1964, reigniting his career. From the mid-’60s until his death in 1987, Chenier enjoyed success in the recording studio and as a touring act across the United States and Europe, winning a Grammy in 1984. His potent fusion of rural Creole music and modern rhythm-and-blues laid the foundation for all subsequent zydeco and has endured as a singular contribution to American popular music. His son, C. J. Chenier, continues the family tradition as the leader of the Red Hot Louisiana Band.

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#7
Dance Halls
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Transcript: Dance Halls

Dance Halls

“They love to dance most of all; more than any other people in the country.” This description was written by an early 19th-century traveler about Louisiana Acadians, and still rings true today. Starting as bals de maison, or house dances, these important community gatherings grew over time, eventually moving into larger accommodations.

Salles de danse, or dance halls, were first recorded in the 1860s, and by the 20th century they had mostly replaced house dances. The dance hall was more than just a place, it was a social occasion, a family affair that included old and young. Dance halls provided a setting for courtship and community building to the tune of live music. After WWII, they became a frequent setting for Cajun wedding receptions. Most were large buildings with wooden benches along the walls. When they weren’t dancing, young men hung out in the entrance hall, called the bullpen. Unmarried young women, however, remained in the dance floor area while their mothers chaperoned from the wooden benches. Since dances could go late into the night, many buildings also included a parc aux petits, a small room with beds for children to sleep while their parents enjoyed the dance. Refreshments always included gumbo and typically coffee, beer, and lemonade.

In the 1980s, a new type of venue entered the scene. The first was Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, a combination dance hall and restaurant, which retained some of the flavor of the traditional dance hall. Its popularity inspired others to follow suit. Although a handful of dance halls still exist, their cultural importance as a primary source of gathering and entertainment has waned.

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#8
Crawfish
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Transcript: Crawfish

Crawfish

Boiled crawfish, now a popular dish among Cajuns and other residents of South Louisiana, is actually a modern-day tradition that has its origins in the mid-20th century. Indigenous people were eating the crustaceans long before the Acadians arrived in the Louisiana colony; at first, however, the newcomers did not partake. Customarily, the Acadians used crawfish for bait, not as something to put on the table. By the 1880s there is mention of people eating crawfish during Lent, but it was mostly a food that poor people resorted to gathering and eating. During the 1950s, eating boiled crawfish began to catch on, but it was not until 1959 when Governor Earl K. Long designated Breaux Bridge as the “crawfish capital of the world” that they really took off. The following year, the first Crawfish Festival took place, and subsequently, boils became popular. It wasn’t long before restaurants, like Mama Thibo’s in Breaux Bridge, also got in on the action. This establishment served as an informal headquarters for photographers Douglas Baz and Charles Traub during their time in Louisiana.

Every boil recipe is different, but generally crawfish are cooked in spicy, seasoned water. Lemons, garlic, onions, and salt are added. To round out the meal, corn on the cob, red potatoes, and whatever else the cook favors are thrown in. Now and then Cajuns will “catch an envie,” or a desire, for some crawfish. That desire does not stop with them. In South Louisiana today, crawfish boils are a social event, bringing together friends and family for the love of the mudbug.

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#9
Boucherie
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Transcript: Boucherie

Boucherie

A boucherie is a traditional community event where an animal is butchered and the meat is prepared and divided among participants. Before the days of refrigeration, the boucherie was an essential component of Cajun and Creole life. During the summer, a group of about 20 farmers would each agree to furnish a calf. In the winter months, pigs were slaughtered. The members of the group would meet on Saturdays to process the meat, which served as a social occasion as well as a practical one. The boucherie was an all-day event. Traditionally, men focused on various aspects of meat production, while women cooked a variety of dishes to feed the participants. At the end of the day, each family brought home about ten pounds of meat.

Since the advent of refrigeration, the boucherie is no longer a necessity. However, some families have renewed the tradition as a celebration, like the family of A. D. Vitto, who revived the winter boucherie in 2014 at his mother’s home in New Iberia. Vitto invites friends and family, and everyone lends a hand from sausage making to cooking backbone stew to frying grattons, or cracklins. “Nothing is wasted,” explained Vitto. “Somebody in the family eats what others in the family don’t eat.” The gathering begins at dawn and ends late that evening with food, music, storytelling, and generally “passing a good time.”

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#10
Spanish Moss
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Transcript: Spanish Moss

Spanish Moss

Native to the southeastern United States and the tropical Americas, Spanish moss, or Tillandsia usneoides, drapes from trees with its long, grey curly strands that hide its occasional flowers. Spanish moss is not really a moss but rather an epiphyte, a plant that grows on trees without harming them. It prefers warm, moist climates, and, interestingly, it belongs to the same botanical family as the pineapple. It prefers live oak or cypress trees but is able to live on other plants and even fences.

It had many uses among Louisiana’s Native Americans, who wove it into a rough cloth for blankets and clothing, made rope, and ignited it on the ends of arrows to gain an advantage in battle. People of the Houma tribe used it to treat fever and chills.

In Louisiana French, the plant is called “Barbe Espagnol,” meaning “Spanish Beard.” Traditionally, Cajuns gathered moss to supplement incomes, since it had a number of commercial applications. Until the mid-20th century, it was used in upholstery in cars and furniture, as well as padding for horse collars and saddles. It provided breathable stuffing, which was very important in the days before air conditioning. First, the plant was harvested from trees using hooked poles. To get to the useful inner filaments of the plant and remove insects, it was cured, and then ginned. Once the inner black strand was exposed, the moss could be cleaned, baled, and shipped. By the time this photograph was taken, commercial harvesting of Spanish moss was on the decline. However, it remains a characteristic part of the landscape.

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#11
The Atchafalaya Basin
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Transcript: The Atchafalaya Basin

The Atchafalaya Basin

The landscape of southern Louisiana is constantly in flux. This watery environment was literally created by the Mississippi River and its related waterways. The river has changed courses frequently over the millennia, each time depositing sediment and creating new land.

Among these waterways, Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin stands out. It is the largest river swamp in the United States, covering nearly a million acres and flowing about 140 miles before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. The environment of interspersed bottomland forest, swamps, bayous, and open water has always been important to the people who live here. Traditional livelihoods in the region were closely tied to the land—hunting, trapping, fishing, logging, and agriculture. In modern times, however, industrial activities and human designs have profoundly altered the region.

Today, infrastructure of the oil and gas industry crisscrosses the Atchafalaya Basin. Pipelines and man-made canals contribute to land loss, their straight lines sharply contrasting with the meanders of the natural waterways.

Following a major flood in 1927, it became clear that the Mississippi River was increasingly contributing more water to the Atchafalaya, which was becoming wider and deeper. To prevent the Mississippi River from diverting its course into the Atchafalaya, the Army Corps of Engineers built the Old River Control Structure in the 1960s. As a result, the Atchafalaya Basin is now actually silting up, and its delta is one of the few places in Louisiana where a net gain in land mass is occurring.

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#12
Nathan Abshire
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Transcript: Nathan Abshire

Nathan Abshire

Typically understood as the folk music of the Acadians and their descendants, Cajun music emerged from diverse influences incorporating French, Native American, Irish, German, West African, and Appalachian musical traditions.

Traditional Cajun music is based on the sound of the fiddle and diatonic accordion, likely brought to Louisiana by German settlers and developed by enslaved people of West African descent. In the mid-20th century, the accordion began to decline in popularity in favor of the guitar with the influence of country-inspired honky-tonk music. Nathan Abshire, pictured here, helped revive the accordion in Cajun popular music. Abshire’s career coincided with a larger revival of Cajun music, as part of the folk music boom of the 1960s. In 1967, he played with fellow Louisiana musicians the Balfa Brothers at the Newport Folk Festival, an event that first introduced traditional Cajun music to a large international audience three years earlier.

Born in 1913 in Gueydan, Louisiana, Abshire spent most of his life in the small community of Basile. He learned to play the accordion at the age of six, and by eight he was already performing professionally in local clubs. In his early twenties he joined Happy Fats and His Rayne-Bo Ramblers, cutting a record with the band in New Orleans in 1935.

Although known for the accordion, Abshire was also a singer, songwriter, and prolific performer. His career spanned six decades. In many ways Abshire’s life reflects the rural working-class roots of Cajun music. Though he enjoyed periods of considerable popularity, he worked manual labor jobs most of life.

Abshire’s most enduring song is perhaps “Pine Grove Blues,” first recorded in 1949. It is a supreme example of the emotive exuberance and dignity embodied in the best of the Cajun tradition.

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#13
Courir de Mardi Gras -- Mamou, LA
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Transcript: Courir de Mardi Gras: Mamou, Louisiana

Courir de Mardi Gras: Mamou, Louisiana

While the world may be familiar with New Orleans and the celebration of Carnival that concludes on Mardi Gras, in southwest Louisiana the celebration is very different. Based in ancient and medieval French traditions, the courir de Mardi Gras (literally the “run” of the Mardi Gras) is the lesser-known rural counterpart to those urban celebrations. There are about 30 local variations of the courir, and the particulars vary from place to place. In addition to the better-known runs among the white Cajun community, there are also runs among rural Creole of color communities. Even today, these are largely segregated affairs.

The Mardi Gras images in this exhibition come from the photographers’ own experience participating in the courir in Mamou, Louisiana. Considered to be one of the more traditional runs, Mamou’s courir consists of all male revelers who still travel on horseback. They gather in the early morning wearing colorful fringed costumes, such as the one seen in this photograph, with tall pointed hats known as capuchons and wire screen masks. The riders call on their relatives, friends, and neighbors. Playing both merrymakers and beggars, they sing, dance, and entertain with comic antics in exchange for the ingredients of the communal gumbo that will be served later that evening. The gumbo ingredients include chickens, generally donated alive, requiring the revelers to chase, leap, tumble, and capture the birds on the fly.

Such traditions often persist in southwest Louisiana through intentional preservation efforts. The courir in Mamou, for example, had gone dormant by the 1950s, when a group of cultural activists revived the run. Today, these courirs continue as a way for communities to celebrate themselves—creating, sustaining, and defining their distinctive culture.

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