Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 - (Page 52)

Odd though it might seem to modern readers, erection of French crosses, or sacred poles, was an element with which the Houma would have identified most easily, as within their own culture the Houma honored highly sacred columns which symbolized both homeland and tribal unity, as the modern name “Baton Rouge” (red stick) indicates. On the one hand, they realized similarities between their columns and those of the explorers and this allowed them to incorporate the French within their own worldview. On the other, they mimicked the importance Frenchmen attached to their structures as a way of forging a common bond. While they understood Iberville’s crosses in a different way than the visitors did, Houma observers immediately grasped how important this beloved pole was to the French. Houma beliefs were reinforced the next year when a visiting priest requested to construct a 40 foot sacred pole in the village square as a sign of his god’s power. Just as the Houma tried to forge common ground with the French by honoring their cross, so the way in which they crosses of white cedar. Indeed, just before they sailed upstream for the Houma village, they had erected a large cross among the Bayougoula. MUTUAL RESPECT OF RELIGION on Iberville’s expedition; on every occasion where the Houma gave food for eating or as gifts, women were the givers. Realizing a good thing when they saw it, French officials started to rely on the Houma for corn. As early as 1701 the colonial governor asked Father de Limoges to take 15 livres worth of beads and barter with the Houma for corn. Failing that, canoes were sent to the highlands in parleys for foodstuffs. French reliance on Houma provisions faltered only slightly around 1706, when the tribe left the highlands (some accounts say voluntarily, some say forcibly as a result of a Tunica attack) and relocated to Choupicatcha, the waterway now known as Bayou St. John. There they continued to grow and provide provisions, came in contact with more Frenchmen, and quite possibly taught colonists the crop which kept the fledgling outpost alive. honored it speaks volumes about the sacred place of food within their own culture. The first night the French parleyed in the village they sat on mats and ate in front of the temple, and this pattern of associating food with proper ceremony continued. After the French returned to their boats the next day, the Houma followed several hours later bearing Indian corn, tobacco, and a calumet. They circled the cross which the French had just erected on the shore, throwing sacred tobacco on it and singing, after which they offered the calumet to the French and their Indian companions. Several days later, when the French party again landed at the Houma village, three women arrived bearing pumpkins. At several times during the French visit to the Houma village, ceremonial presentation of food was intertwined with smoking a calumet, one of the most sacred acts to Lower Mississippi Valley tribes, which in turn was intertwined with honoring the visitors and the element of their culture with which the Houma readily identified. The way in which ceremonial foodstuffs were given also illustrates the importance of women in food supplies. Modern readers often forget how dominant women were in many Native American societies, particularly their importance in native economies before those systems were irreparably changed by Europeans. Corn, pumpkins, and other vegetables were controlled by females among Lower Mississippi Valley nations and their presentation was also associated with females, which is precisely what happened 52 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2008 As do most Louisiana cultures, the Houma have a complex relationship with their food. Unlike most other ethnic groups in the state, however, the Houma can truly say that their food shaped their history, their status, their political survival. Anyone familiar with Louisiana history knows that its colonial period was hardly smooth. Horrible as living conditions were, the lack of wheat for bread caused the largest number of complaints. Increasingly alarmed by what food shortages meant for the colony’s future, around 1708 Louisiane Commissary General Martin d’Artaguette persuaded eight Mobile men to relocate and grow wheat, in return for which he would arrange generous land grants. The area chosen was high ground standing along transport routes, but successful Houma production of cereal crops in the same area might also have convinced the Mobile party that this area would prove ideal for wheat. If so, they were sorely disappointed for the first several years. Wheat grew beautifully in the heat and rain, but then withered and burned only a few weeks before harvest; d’Artaguette attributed this to fogs emanating from local woods, but after several disastrous seasons colonists reasoned that crops failed as a result of the heat and high water table. Only a few habitants stayed more than a few years, but those who did switched to corn and flourished as agriculturalists. Given that they grew the same crops as the Houma in the same area after years of attempting unsuccessful European imports, it is highly likely that the French arrivals observed Houma agriculture and incorporated it. One group’s success sometimes come at another’s expense, and the Houma quickly found themselves losing land through a series of French grants between 1708 and 1721. Moreover, the introduction of European diseases and alcohol hit the tribe very hard, and the small nation relocated upriver to the modern Donaldsonville area to survive. On the banks of the great river they called Malbanchya they were far enough away from New Orleans to escape the deadlier elements, yet close enough to transport goods to market, goods the French desperately needed to maintain settlements. The period after departure from the highlands marked a large shift in Houma culture. Before, food was given as a sign of hospitality and ceremony. By the 1720s, however, the tribe produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for New Orleanians and truly entered the market economy, albeit in a native framework. Other tribes also supplied the city with produce, but the Houma maintained a particularly robust LEARNING FROM THE NATIVES

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Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities New Orleans Immortelle The Historic New Orleans Collection Highland-Fairfield: The Historic Heart of Shreveport The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Perils of the Mississippi River Louisiana Foodways Harvest of Life King Oliver: The Forgotten King of Jazz Louisiana Architecture Jazz Notes Louisiana State Museum Eye of the Storm Louisiana Association of Museums Soul Resin Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008

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