HEADED FOR 'THE BERRY"

Moss draped live oak in south Louisiana

Yesterday's cold spell reminded me that winter is approaching The Mountain at Sewanee, Tennessee. Cooler temps signaled the time for me to become a snow bird and head South to my second home in New Iberia, Louisiana, a place affectionately called "The Berry." We leave next week for Teche country and will arrive just in time for the great Halloween Hand-out.

I thought perhaps New Iberians had celebrated all of the city's 2013 festivals — the Sugar Cane Festival, the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce's World Championship Gumbo Cook-off, the annual Art Walk (among the most recent ones), but I'll arrive in time to enjoy a fairly young event in the festival line-up: El Festival Espanol de Nueva Iberia.

The Spanish festival program includes "Running of the Bulls" featuring Dave Robichaux, James Lee Burke's fictional character who lives on the banks of The Bayou Teche in New Iberia, a 5K race, an enactment of the arrival of the Spanish on Bayou Teche, a paella/jambalaya cookoff, a fais-do-do, and guest lectures.

El Festival Espanol was established to honor the founding of Nueva Iberia in 1779 by a band of Malagueños from Malaga Spain who were brought over by Lt. Colonel Don Francisco Bouligny. Bouligny was sent to the Attakapas District of Louisiana to establish a new Spanish town, but soon entered the War of Independence and never returned to the small village to which he had brought his band of Malagueños. However, a statue of Bouligny behind the gazebo in the Plaza of New Iberia honors his efforts to found a Spanish settlement on the Bayou Teche.

Among the first families who struggled to settle Nueva Iberia were Romeros, Villatoros, Miguez, and Seguras, whose descendants remained in the area near New Iberia and Spanish Lake. Many of the Spanish families intermingled with Cajuns, and people often attribute the founding of New Iberia to Cajuns, but the Malagueños are the true founders of "The Berry."

Spanish flag

Several years ago I wrote a young adult novel entitled Flood on the Rio Teche, which is based on the founding of New Iberia by the Malagueños in 1779 during the time of a devastating flood. The hero of this fictional account, Antonio Romero, struggles through flooding of his home site, disease, poisonous snakebites, crop failure, kidnapping, and a family break-up. He and his family befriend nearby Chitimacha tribesmen from Charenton, Louisiana who save their lives many times, and the story ends with an engagement between Antonio and a Cajun girl, Claire. Historical facts are interwoven throughout the novel, and it has been used for supplemental reading in several New Iberia classrooms.

Although this is probably the last festival in New Iberia scheduled for 2013, I've already checked the calendar, and April's schedule for 2014 includes the Cajun Hot Sauce Festival, just before I return to The Mountain. Not to mention the Mardi Gras celebrations in February and March. Laissez le bon temps roulez!   

THE CULTURE OF THE COULEE



Ginger in coulee

“Coulee” is a French word derived from “couler” which means “to flow,” and is used to describe a channel created by water erosion, but here in south Louisiana, the word is used loosely to define a drainage ditch, a deep ravine in which thick vegetation overtakes its bank. However, a coulee can be a canal in the swamp that is smaller than a typical Louisiana bayou.

A long and slowly-widening coulee runs behind our backyard, and a few years ago we built a bulwark along its edge to prevent further erosion. Throughout the years we've found another use for our now-luxuriantly-edged coulee.  Into it we have heaved pot plants that have dried up, plant cuttings, and plants that have invaded the fence and been dug up. And in this rich Louisiana soil, if we have a particularly rainy year, we've watched many plant resurrections that, in time, form a beautiful garden along the ditch.

Some plants that have resurrected include elephant ears, cicad plants, and, lately, a beautiful ginger plant. This Spring, ginger plants that had overtaken the fence were dug up and thrown into the ditch, and when we returned in October, five-feet tall ginger plants greeted us! They have been our most successful “throwaways,” and we’re considering harvesting the roots.

Ginger plants thrive in subtropical conditions, so we weren’t surprised when we saw what our “disposal” had resurrected. The root of the ginger plant provides a wonderful spice used in cooking, and the Chinese use it as a medicine for healing colic and flatulence; but we’re content just to look at the plant and hope that next year it will flower at its predicted two-year mark for flowering.

A biologist at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette once said that gardeners in south Louisiana should never fertilize plants but should just put them in the ground and step back! In our case, it’s a matter of just digging something up or taking a leaf cutting or a dead plant and throwing it into the coulee. Hay la bas, we then witness a miraculous south Louisiana garden!

In the introduction to my young adult book, Flood on the Rio Teche, I wriote about this luxuriant culture: “The air, fungi-laden and humid, presses down on us all the time... The place seems somnolent and enclosing... I can never leave its banks for long. It has a voice, a liquid voice, husky because of the mist above the brown water... and the decay, dark banks loamy with decay…animals lurking... [in our case possums, coons, and armadillos forage in the coulee], the mosquitoes and the stifling curtain of heat, behind which they [the Cajuns] sang and told stories. Its voice is a very old voice..."

Photograph by Victoria I. Sullivan

Ready Early

THE FLOOD ON THE RIO TECHE, the story of the establishment of New Iberia, Louisiana by the Malaguenos (Spanish) in 1779, has been published and is now available on www.amazon.com and from Border Press, P.O. Box 3124, Sewanee, TN 37375. A fictional account of the founding of this colorful city on Bayou Teche in Louisiana was written for young adults but will appeal to all ages. Although fictional, the book contains historical information woven into the story from authors such as Gilbert Din, Charles Gayarre, Glenn Conrad, Barry Ancelet, and others. 98 pages with bibliography, introduction, and epilogue. The cover illustration is a beautiful rendition by my brother Paul and designed by grandson, Martin Romero, and Dr. Victoria Sullivan.

I've lived in New Iberia for over forty years and have wanted to write a book about this wonderful multicultural city on the Teche for many years. Much research and feeling inspired the story. My grandson is a Romero whose lineage is from one of the first few families to settle and stay in this area of southwestern Louisiana. I think it is one of my best young adult fiction books and am proud to present it to my readers. The book has been discovered online and is already selling!!

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book of fiction for young adults about the Spanish settlement of New Iberia in 1779 entitled "Flood on the Rio Teche":

“It is a fecund city on the banks of the Bayou Teche. The air, fungi-laden and humid, presses down on us all the time. Jays squawk incessantly in the magnificent oaks, the stand of trees like somber umbrellas overshadowing day-to-day commerce. On the Teche’s banks are dagger-shaped plants; in the fields, the drooping cane grows thickly. The place seems somnolent and enclosing. I fell in love with the trees, the air, and the vigor of many cultures living alongside one another. I was inspired by the lordly oak and complaining jay, meandering bayou, and pale green light of Spring. I can never leave this place for long. It has a voice, a liquid voice, husky because of the mist above the brown water and the decay, dark banks loamy with decay. The people came down, in exile, and made their music, sharp in the heavy air, laughing confidently, laughing away the somber history of their exile and rejoicing on the banks of muddy water, birthing many infants, the making of children rich and life-giving. They plowed the loamy soil, poled in the backwaters of the swamps looking for food, always the wild animals lurking, the mosquitoes, and the stifling curtain of heat, behind which they sang and told stories. Its voice is a very old voice and its history is one of struggle.”