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Walk the Roots: Creole Wood-carvers of Louisiana
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18933 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1991 |
2,572 Words |
| Author
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Maurice M. Martinez
Maurice M. Martinez, a Creole native son of New Orleans, is a
professor at Hunter College in New York City and the producer
of the award-winning documentary film, "The Black Indians of
New Orleans." |
"Hey la bas, cousain!" Pierre yells. "Pierre is the only person I know who can go duck hunting and come home with a sack of oysters," replies a voice. A roar of laughter from dozens of men and boys gathered along the levee seems to purify the morning mist as Pierre paddles his dugout cypress pirogue through the narrow pass--the "cut"--that leads to an expanse of shallow ponds and flooded rice fields. "Where did you get those duck decoys, Pierre, from the corner grocery store?" booms another voice. "No," replies Pierre, "don't you remember? These are the ones you carved!" More laughter.
It is opening day of the Louisiana duck hunting season. Smiles of recognition abound, as young boys learn spirited lessons of compassion from their fathers, who interact in centuries-old oral and aural traditions of genuine warmth and caring. The hunt is now secondary to the ceremonial bonds of the gathering. "Come here, son, I want you to meet your cousin", exclaims one father. It is a time for the best in each personality to vibrate, to express subtleties of human existence not taught in textbooks. It is a moment when past and present come together to celebrate manhood. Like their ancestors--American Indian, French, African, Spanish, German, Italian, Irish, and others--gens de couleur, "Creoles of color" (so labeled because of their African blood) continue to express life in genres that speak to a legacy of friendship nurtured in the wetlands.
Louisiana Creoles, the offspring of a cross-fertilization of cultures and ethnic groups, are perhaps the best artisans and craftspeople in America. Among them are the Creole wood-carvers, a group dedicated to the art of decoy and decorative bird carving, passed down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. It is a cultural tradition that includes the social history of patterns of interaction of Americans with each other and with a plenteous land. It is a story of a Creole people who have survived in a society that denied and despised them because they were partially of African descent, legally as little as 1/32 African.
The earliest roots
Along the Mississippi River, the early French colonizers found Native American groups living in a rapport with their environment. Native American communities such as the Natchez, Houma, Bayogoula, Quinipissa, and Chawasha--who were of the same linguistic family known as Muskhogean--cultivated farms in the rich Louisiana earth. They primarily fished and hunted only what was needed for food. As the French colonizers engaged the largest group of Native
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