LOUISIANA FOLKLIFE AND MORE ABOUT TRAITEURS

Martin, boy traiteur, illustrated
by Billy Ledet for Martin's Quest

Traiteurs (treaters or healers) are the major characters in three of my young adult novels set here in Acadiana—books I call "The Martin Series" because the name Martin appears in the title of all three volumes. A few days ago, I re-read an article featuring a traiteur in an old issue of Louisiana Folklore Miscellany and decided to go online to see if newer articles about these healers' work had been published in this journal.

Louisiana Folklore Miscellany is the official publication of the Louisiana Folklore Society, an organization formed in 1956 to promote the "study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional culture of Louisiana." This publication is a fascinating journal for teachers and writers of Louisiana history. In a 2008 issue, I read an article by Julia Swett entitled "French Louisiana Traiteurs" in which I discovered many parallels of thought that had appeared in my young adult novels featuring traiteur characters, and also in talks I'd given to students throughout south Louisiana about the traiteurs in the Martin Series.

Swett, a graduate of Religious Studies and Cultural Anthropology, respects the work of traiteurs who use faith healing methods and herbal remedies and pointed out that indigenous herbal remedies are frequently used in pharmaceutical drugs. In talks that I delivered, I pointed out the same fact, tracing some of the herbal remedies to those used by native Americans who co-mingled with the Acadians following the Grand Derangement when the French Canadians fled to south Louisiana during the 18th century.

Another facet of traiteur beliefs she talked about, which I had emphasized in my talks about the Martin Series, was the link between healthy bodies and healthy minds and the way a traiteur tries to understand how the patient feels when he begins treatments. In my latest young adult novel, Martin and the Last Tribe, I wrote: "Christ didn't believe that disease was part of the divine order of things...He was aware that resentment, fear, anxiety, hatred, and the like cause disease. When he spoke, he talked about faith, hope, the will to live, and he was always trying to lift the people to a higher state of becoming well..." In another passage of the same book, I wrote: "To me, traiteur work was a way I (Martin, the hero of the Martin Series) could quiet the sick person's mind and come into contact with the part of the self that the person I was treating wasn't aware of... then lead that person to become conscious of what made him sick..."

Swett explained that traiteurs use laying on of hands and prayer, just as clergy do in the sacrament of healing in the Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches, and in the Martin Series, Martin and his grandmother use this method during all of their healing sessions. Interestingly, Swett wrote: "Many healing systems approach the individual body as being continuous or integrated with the social body. When illness manifests in the individual body, it is indicative of a lack of integration with the social body." And in Martin and the Last Tribe, I write, "We did our traiteur work not only to relieve the sick person, but to remind him that he could return to the healthy order of things" ("the healthy order" meaning community or the social body).

For those readers who are interested in Louisiana Folklife and Folklore, I recommend the Louisiana Miscellany and other publications of the Louisiana Folklore Society that are available online. I also recommend the work of the Louisiana Folklife Center at Northwestern State University, which coordinates the Natchitoches/NSU Folklife Festival and is an archival repository for many folklife materials. The Center contains a print library of books and periodicals and still photographic images.

Note:  Covers of Martin Finds His Totem and Martin and the Last Tribe feature paintings by my brother Paul Marquart. 

MARTIN AND THE LAST TRIBE

Rain the last two days reminded me of deluges in Louisiana that we call “frog stranglers and root soakers”–devastating floods that I recall inundated Louisiana as far back as the 40’s when my mother rescued a dog paddling in high waters near Lake Arthur, Louisiana. The latest from the “Sewanee Classified,” which reports all the happenings in this small community on The Mountain of Sewanee, Tennessee, is that the road to Cowan and Winchester has washed out, and crews are presently at work clearing a path into the valley. However, deluges here on The Mountain seldom cause the kind of damage experienced by citizens in my second home in Louisiana at lower elevations.

As sea levels rise in coastal Louisiana, places like Isle de Jean Charles, a ridge of land between Bayou Pointe-au-Chien and Bayou Terrebonne, experience destructive flooding, and this island is gradually disappearing into Terrebonne Bay. The population of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe and other community members has dwindled to 25 families because water is swallowing up the land, and the places where community members used to hunt, trap, and plant gardens are vanishing. The island is often battered by floods and sinking of land, along with rising ocean levels, which make future habitation almost impossible.

The small band of people descending from Choctaw, Houma, Biloxi, and Chitimacha Indian tribes who grew up on Isle de Jean Charles cling to their home and traditions, but their future is uncertain because it lies past the levee alignment which is currently under construction for the Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Protection Project.

Readers may have seen several documentaries about this small population on the Louisiana coast–Can’t Stop the Water, Last Stand on the Island, and a fictional treatment in a movie entitled Beasts of the Southern Wild.

I've been fascinated with the story of this island for over a year and spent the last year researching and writing a middle-grade novel, the third in a series about a young boy traiteur who goes down to Isle de Jean Charles to talk to his Great Uncle Joe who has barricaded himself in his cabin rather than move to higher ground. Martin attempts to treat his unhinged uncle and meets a lovely Island girl who is ill, but he runs into trouble when he tries to use his healing powers on an injured person who doesn't want his folk medicine. While he’s on the Island, he’s caught in a battering storm, experiences the aftermath of an oil rig exploding in the Gulf, and witnesses threats to the Island and surrounding marshes.

Environmental issues, tribal conflicts and Indian lore, romance, and the introduction to various herbs used in healing by the 11^th century nun, Hildegard of Bingen, are woven into the story. Followers of Martin Romero, the protagonist, will enjoy the young traiteur’s latest explorations as “Master of Adventure” in Martin And the Last Tribe.

The cover painting of this book for young readers was rendered by my brother Paul Marquart, and book design by my grandson, Martin Romero (for whom the protagonist is named). Copies of this middle grade and young adult novel can be ordered online from amazon.com, or from: Border Press, PO Box 3124, Sewanee TN 37375.

TWO SPRING SEASONS

Not everyone gets to experience two Springs, but we enjoy a double Spring every year when we leave New Iberia in March during the time the azaleas, Japanese magnolia, and other purple flowering plants are blooming and return to The Mountain at Sewanee, Tennessee. There, daffodils have begun to show their white and yellow heads, forsythia, and tulip poplar aren’t long behind, and by late April, I’ve sharpened my trowel and begun “putting something in the ground,” as folks around here call the planting process.

This week we return to The Mountain, climbing from below sea level elevation in bayou country to 2,000 feet, and for a swamp dweller, it’s enough of a climb to warrant a few days of adaptation – from marsh and bayou to rocky plateau – from rich Cajun cuisine to mountain barbecue – from French accent to hill folk drawl – the diversity in culture is pronounced.

Fortunately, my writing rooms face woodsy views in both places, so my Muse has plenty of room to develop ideas, visions, novels, poetry, and, of course, blogs. My sojourn in New Iberia this year has included a lot of socializing, and I have some trepidation about leaving old friends because life on The Mountain is sometimes “austere,” as a good friend at Sewanee describes it. In a village of 2000, comprised of mostly college students, jaunts into neighboring states and places to get what we call “a shot of the city,” are frequently called for. However, I write more poetry and enjoy the contemplative aspects of mountain living, particularly since I’m an associate of the Order of St. Mary where the Benedictine routine of prayer and worship takes place daily.

This year during my sojourn in New Iberia, I finished writing a young adult novel, the third in a series about Martin Romero, the young traiteur who is the hero in lively stories about south Louisiana; namely Martin’s Quest and Martin Finds His Totem. Martin and the Last Tribe is set in Isle de Jean Charles where a remote Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe on the Gulf of Mexico struggles for survival despite the threat of being inundated by the sea because they aren’t included in a levee protection plan developed by the government.

When Martin’s Uncle Joe barricades himself in his cabin on the Island rather than move to higher ground, Martin goes down to perform an unwelcome healing and ends up in trouble. More trouble brews when an oil rig explodes in the Gulf, endangering the marshes and wildlife of Isle de Jean Charles. A storm threatens to flood the Island, and he finds himself with more adventure than he wants to handle…

Martin and the Last Tribe was written for middle grade and young adult readers and should be released in May. The painting on the cover was rendered by my brother; the design by my grandson Martin. Those readers who saw the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild may recognize the compelling setting. More about the book closer to publishing date. My desk is moving to higher ground!