LCV Winter 2013-14 - (Page 96)

EROSION OF CULTURE ouisiana's coastal communities have faced a host of problems since the first settlements put down roots on her fertile soil. Efforts to control the Mississippi River, such as its eventual leveeing, began the process that today causes Louisiana's coastal residents to hover in a perilous predicament. By now the statistics about the state's land loss are painfully familiar: an acre of land erodes every 24 minutes. Many people are less aware, though, of the erosion of our cultural landscape. According to 2009 U.S. Census data, two million people, roughly 47 percent of Louisiana's population, reside in this quickly disappearing coastal zone. The communities that grew up along our waterways harbored some of our state's most distinctive cultures: Native Americans, Cajuns and Isleños. As the wetlands dissolve into the Gulf, so does our cultural heritage. Native Americans lived along the coast and in the wetlands of Louisiana well before written history. Prehistoric cultures followed the waterways, leaving evidence such as shell middens. Lying along the southeastern Louisiana coast is Isle de Jean Charles, an island with about sixty-five residents of the BiloxiChitimacha tribe. Historically Native American, the island boasts a rich culture that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. The Isle de Jean Charles cemetery bears a single cross as its only marker, with a plaque at its base listing the 50 known names of those buried there. The Gulf of Mexico's waters lap the shore less than a quarter mile away. Multiple hurricanes have flooded the island, leaving a wake of destruction. Isle de Jean Charles is outside of the state levee system, and the tribe lacks federal recognition (and the funds that would come with it). Both the cemetery and the island will eventually surrender to the Gulf. Once a community is forced to migrate inland, its cultural fabric unravels, never to be restored. Although tribes attempt to hang on to their ancestral homelands, many have turned to occupations that lie further inland. Having lost their landscape, they also lose the sense of place that anchored their culture. When Cajuns' Acadian ancestors first arrived in Louisiana, they settled along the Mississippi River, then spread to areas on or near Bayou Lafourche, Bayou Teche, the Atchafalaya Basin and points west. In relative isolation, they learned to live off the bounty of the land, and some moved into remote but productive areas of the marshes and wetlands. Now Cajuns' traditional livelihoods and rich culture are threatened, along with their environment. Cajuns well know the flora and fauna of the wetlands can no longer sustain everyone who would like to continue this way of life. Going downstream along Bayou Lafourche, one finds that water has inundated places where people once lived, tragic evidence of the change taking place. Younger members of the community, although they love their background and culture, L 96 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES * Winter 2013-14 see the difficulties lying ahead, and so find work and move further inland. The same holds true for coastal regions of southwestern Louisiana, where places like lower Cameron Parish have been pummeled by hurricanes to the point where many young adults are choosing to resettle inland, in less flood-prone areas such as Lake Charles. How much longer can the Cajuns maintain their culture and way of life in this every day, every week, every shrimp season, and every hurricane season battle? The Isleños community of San Bernardo started in 1779, when Spanish colonial officials transported settlers from the Canary Islands to Louisiana to act as a buffer zone against English territory to the east. San Bernardo-now St. Bernard Parish-was established along Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs, with some settlers raising cattle, some farming, and others working on nearby plantations. Like the Cajuns, the Isleños learned to extract food and their livelihoods from Louisiana's wetlands. For more than two centuries, the Isleños maintained strong cultural ties among themselves through their traditions, religion and language, but their cultural landscape began shifting when the Mississippi River levees were built in the 1800s and dredges chewed up pathways for the oil and gas industry in the 20th century. Their land was under attack as the salt water came in faster, and the ponds and lakes grew larger. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) was opened, the swamp forests died, and the community began to fade. Hurricanes inflicted more damage; Betsy was intense, but Katrina nearly wiped much of lower St. Bernard Parish off the map. In 2012, Isaac consumed more of the wetlands and ravaged what little remains of the Isleños' environment. In an abandoned cultural landscape, cemeteries are often the sole surviving element of the former community's material culture. They provide a vital link to the names, the identities, and the histories of the people who were the lifeblood of the place where the cemetery lies. The St. Bernard Cemetery, also known as Terre-aux-Boeufs, was established in 1787. Headstones bear surnames of the original colonists-Rodriguez, Perez, Nunez and Gonzales-names still common among Isleños today. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated the Terre-aux-Boeufs cemetery. Evidence of destruction persists in 2013 as crumbling vaults expose coffins, and sometimes remains. Cracked headstones lie in utter disrepair. It is not that the community wishes to leave its cemetery in this state of demise, it is that the people are not there anymore to maintain it. They've been forced inland due to uncontrollable environmental circumstances. The loss of cultural landscape in Louisiana has been in progress for many years, due to natural causes as well as the interaction of humans and the environment. Since the state no longer receives the rich sediment needed to sustain the soil, the land sinks and is now being lost to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The unique cultures of Louisiana's coastal areas are similarly threatened with dissolution. They face devastating losses-the loss of place, the loss of livelihoods and the loss of their cultural landscape. ------------------------------------ Gerald T. McNeill is an instructor of geography and undergraduate coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana University. Jessica H. Schexnayder is the administrative coordinator of communications at Louisiana Sea Grant College Program based at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. 

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