Saturday, February 11th, 2006 - The Lafitte Cultural Center in Eunice, Louisiana.

We started our day with a drive North to Eunice, Louisianna, to find the third and last branch of the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park. Along the way we saw flooded fields with small wire cages poking up out of the shallow water. We later learned that the farmers who grow rice in those fields in the summer get a second "crop" by raising crawfish in the ponds in the winter. The wire cages are basically crawfish traps that allow the farmer to harvest the crop. It surely seemed like an ingenious way to get a little extra from the fields, and the market for crayfish seemed to be pretty strong in that area; I even found frozen crawfish tails in the local Wal-Mart Super center!

The Eunice branch of the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park was located right in the center of town next to an old movie house. This branch focused more on the Acadians that lived in the grassland region of southwestern Louisiana whose main occupation had been raising cattle. Each branch of the JLNHP gave the same basic story of the origin of the Acadians, but elaborated it with different details about how they had adapted to the local ecology to form a new way of life. After seeing all three sites, it was abundantly clear that the Acadians were a very adaptive and resourceful people.

But that adaptability in some aspects of the culture was in contrast to the unusual stability in other aspects of the Acadian culture. Two that were noted in the museum were the language and the styles of furniture. The Cajun French language is apparently an almost perfectly preserved version of 16th Century French from the western provinces where the Acadians originated. Since the French actually used by the French people in France has shifted over the last four centuries, the Acadian version apparently sounds to them somewhat like someone speaking Shakespearean English would sound to an American, which is to say weird but understandable. The Cajun Ranger running our campground testified to the fact that when he visited France while serving in the military, he could converse perfectly well with the French people, a fact that astounded his buddies.

The other indicator of stability was the style of furniture, which was also the same solidly built style that had been used in 16th Century western France. The chairs, chests, and amoires were described as being almost identical to the antique pieces from that period found in France. I was very curious why some aspects of the culture such as the language, the furniture styles, and the religion, did not change at all over four hundred years while other aspects of the culture such as the basic methods of making a living, diet, and music, changed a great deal indeed.

In the Cajun diet, some changes were forced simply by being in a completely different ecology with different food sources. An example of that, I think, is the use of things like locally plentiful crawfish in the diet. Similarly, some things such as the traditional potato would not grow in Louisiana but sweet potatoes would, forcing another shift in diet. In addition there was influence from the cooking of African American folks such as the use of vegetables like okra. The museum even had a Cajun cooking demonstration that afternoon in a fully equipped kitchen in a large side room, which is the first time I have ever seen such a kitchen set up in any museum anywhere. I mean, they had a huge mirror above the food preparation island in the middle of this "kitchen", and it looked for all the world like a TV set for Julia Childs or some other cooking show.

The adaptations in music would seem to be more clearly due to voluntary changes rather than being forced by a new ecology, so in some way the cultural shifts in music are even more interesting than the changes in diet. Based on the 90-minute film we saw, over time the original French musical traditions were blended with influences like African American Blues themes and instruments such as the German accordion to create really unique musical style. In fact, another presentation in the museum that afternoon was a live performance of Cajun music, and it was fun to see the music performed in an authentic manner and to watch the local folks dance to it. The rhythm of the music was infectious, what the Cajuns described as music that "tickled their feet" and made them want to dance. Apparently Zydeco had a somewhat similar blend of musical traditions but with more of the African American Blues influence to it.

It was heartening to hear that the youngest generation of musicians was still playing Cajun music even though they had also integrated more recent musical influences, most notably from rock and roll. But that seemed to exemplify the cultural resilience that really ensured the survival in some fashion of the old musical traditions, albeit in a transformed blend. If you visit Eunice on a Saturday evening, you could also pay $5 and stay for the weekly live performance of Cajun music at the old theater one short block to the east of the Jean Lafitte center. Although it sounded like fun, we were simply too tired and wended our way back to our campsite following all the twists and turns of Louisiana Route 95, another of Louisiana's scenic byways.

The scenery on the way back was, of course, quite flat, but at least there were a lot of trees between the fields and things were turning green, a pleasant change for people like us who are used to a wet, arboreal climate. We had wondered if some wading fishing birds would take advantage of the large ponds of crawfish provided by the farmers in the area, and sure enough we saw some egrets flying around them out in the hinterlands, clearly enjoying a good meal. Another thing we noticed was that as we passed through each little town was the local Catholic church. Every one we saw that evening was surrounded by the cars of parishioners attending the Saturday evening mass, and I mean cars were parked just everywhere they could possibly be fit in. It looked to us like the churches would be packed, and that was for a Saturday evening service! To me, that was one sign that the Cajun folks still take their religion very seriously indeed. If so, that must be added to the factors that provided Acadian cultural stability over the centuries. It made me wonder if the cultural anthropologists have really analyzed the exact factors that can provide stability and resilience of cultures over time. That research would, of course, be quite difficult to do, but since some cultures are "survivors" while so many other cultures disappear rather completely, ascertaining the factors that differentiate the two outcomes would seem to be important.

We returned to our campsite just before sundown, which gave us time for a relaxed evening. I was unexpectedly exhausted, I think because driving the rural roads was more stressful than I had anticipated. I had been surprised by the unexpectedly heavy Saturday evening church traffic and spooked a bit by the narrow lanes and soft mud shoulders of the country roads. When I was young and foolish I went flying along on country roads, got stuck up to the car axles in mud, and had to finally be pulled out by a local farmer with his tractor. Trying to avoid a repeat of that experience, I drove as close to the center line as possible and we made it back to camp safely. After dinner we had time to start the next book in Anne Perry's Inspector Monk saga, "A Breach of Promise", before turning in for the night.