Tag Archives: Louisiana

Crawfish Boil on Easter

Text:

“So my dad’s from Louisiana and every year on Easter after we go to Church, we have a crawfish boil with the whole family and there’s music playing and my dad and his brothers boil the crawfish with potatoes and corn and sausage. All of my extended family goes so it’s pretty fun–we don’t get to see each other that much.” 

Context: 

As my informant mentioned, his father is from Louisiana, and he knows of many other people from Louisiana who have crawfish boils regularly. His family has been doing this for his entire life and even before he was born, although he does not know when the tradition started. 

Interpretation:

A crawfish boil is a great example of a tradition rooted in Cajun culture in Louisiana. As described by my informant, they usually include traditional Cajun food such as crustaceans and sausage. At the event, people come together to eat, showing how communal eating can create unity amongst a group of people. This group could be family, friends, colleagues, a combination of these, etc. Because my informant’s family associates crawfish boil with Easter, this example also shows how a tradition can become associated with religion, holidays, and the calendar, making them cyclic and ongoing. 

Crocus sac

Text (local legend):

“My parents and grandparents always told us to beware of a man carrying a crocus sac because he might come and take us away.”

Context:

A is 50 years old and from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His entire immediate family is from there as well born and raised. He currently lives in Texas and has lived there for 20 years.

A: “I was pre-teen back then so probably around 7 to 12 and back then y’know we played outside a lot and kind of had free reign so I would play down at my grandmothers house with my cousins and to make sure y’know we didn’t stray too far like maybe two to three blocks from our house they would tell us this old tale to make sure we were at least within shouting distance when they called us.”

Q: “So this was a commonly used warning story to make sure you all were close to home?”

A: “Well all of the kids knew the story as our parents told us growing up if you weren’t on your best behavior, or if you strayed too far from home our parents would tell us this as kind of a scare tactic.”

Q: “Who were these people really that kids thought would take them away?”

A: “It was the 70’s so you rarely saw women working outside the house back then, it was always a guy of working age probably between 20 and 40 carrying that sack and it was pretty big sack so we believed that they could carry little kids away back then. This was the deep south in the around 1970s so it was pre-backpack (laughs) they would really just use it to like carry tools in or maybe carry some lunch in.”

Analysis:

The text is a legend as it consists of a localized traditional narrative formed from historical and societal norms of the time. While the 1970s was a time for progress as more women were increasingly joining the workforce, During this period, however, it was rare for women to work outside of the house as this was reflective of traditional gender norms. With that said, it may seem intuitive that in this narrative, the alleged Crocus monster was simply working men carrying sacs associated with their outdoor work field used to carry dry goods during work or travel. As described by my informant, the sacs that children believed to belong to the Crocus monster was large enough to fit a small child increasing the fear factor of children who were being told this story. This was told primarily by adults to their children in an attempt to discourage them from straying too far from home and to keep them obedient. This is representative of the challenges in the African American community that shaped the ways in which parents approached raising their children. African American parents were heavily influenced by social, economic, employment, and other factors that disadvantaged the community. For this reason, there was a stronger emphasis on discipline and authority when it came to raising children as the emphasis was on instilling “good behavior” in their children.  This is a prime example of Valk’s idea that legends can have a function of teleological orientation occurring when humans wander from their daily practices or routines into alien territory.

Mardi Gras

Text (festival)

“A week-long festival celebrating New Orlean’s culture and heritage.”

Context

My informant has lived in Louisiana for 4 years and attended the Mardi Gras festival two times.

Q: “What exactly is Mardi Gras?”

A: “The celebration originated in New Orleans and people travel from all across the country to celebrate Mardi Gras here in New Orleans. Basically, it’s a week-long festival/series of parades that happens at the beginning of January lasting until Fat Tuesday right before Ash Wednesday.”

Q: “What is the significance of the celebration?”

A: “It’s essentially a ‘last hoorah’ before lent so it’s the last time you indulge, drinking, eating sweets, especially king’s cake, before you give it up for lent.”

Analysis

Mardi Gras is a French phrase meaning “Fat Tuesday” translated into English. This comes from the custom of using up all of the fats in the home before lent in preparation for fasting and abstinence. Important families will create floats and dress up in extravagant glittery costumes driving the float around the city throwing out beads, coconuts, candy, etc. There is jazz music, performers, and people in costumes. New Orleans has a lot of French culture stemming from the Louisiana Purchase which gave the United States new land, including New Orleans. People typically dress up in the Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, and green. People not coming from “important” New Orleans families will typically just wear comfortable clothes aligning with the Mardi Gras colors and walking shoes as they’ll be outside walking a lot. Different parades are happening throughout the week at different times and the streets are filled with people in celebration. The celebration marks the beginning of Lent, a yearly 40-day fasting period leading up to easter. This is exemplary of the connection between festivals and yearly cycles/the calendar as well as religious folklore. Festivals are often symbolic of cyclical time and the calendar year as Lent is a practice occurring yearly in Christian communities and the festival serves as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Christian practices and beliefs. Larry Danielson, a religious folklorist explores these themes of religious rituals and practices including communal groups participating in religious originating festivals representative of shared belief. Mardi Gras specifically has Catholic roots and people use festivals as a way to come together and provide a more deep appreciation and nuanced understanding of religious tradition.

Andy and the Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 83
Occupation: Retired Professor
Residence: Louisiana
Performance Date: October 24, 2020
Primary Language: English

The Story (Over Zoom):
This story is about a little boy named Andy. And Andy was not very cooperative with his mother. He lived alone with his mother, and his mother became ill. She asked Andy to go to the well and get her a cool drink of water. And it was getting night time and Andy says “Nah, I’m scared to go to the well, there’s a ghost that lives in the well”. And his mom says “No, there’s no ghost that lives in the well”. But he wouldn’t go get her a cold drink of water. So that night when they went to bed, he was juuuuust about to sleep, when he heard this sound saying: “AAAAAAANDY I’m on my first step… AAAAAAAAAANDY I’m on my second step… AAAAAAAANDY I’m on your porch… AAAAANDY I’m in your house… AAAAAANDY I’m by your bed… AAAAAANDY I GOT YOU”. *lunges forward as if to grab me*

Context (as given by the informant):
The first time I remember that being played on me was when some of my cousins were visiting and they were three or four years older than what I was, and we were sitting on the front steps of the house where I grew up, and that was one of my early encounters with a ghost story.
It was told as a way to scare younger children.

Analysis:
This story serves two purposes, both as a joke to play on someone unaware, as the ending is a jump scare usually coupled with someone grabbing the listener, but also as a warning. The story tells us that because Andy didn’t listen to his mother and refused to get her water, he was haunted by a ghost. So there’s an element there about respecting one’s elders in addition to the comedic purpose of the tale.

The Ghost of Chloe

Nationality: American
Age: 57
Occupation: Professor (USC)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: October 24, 2020
Primary Language: English

The Story (over Zoom):
There’s a plantation called Myrtle’s that was a South Louisiana plantation outside of New Orleans that General Bradford, who was a famous general, owned. He, like many plantation owners, was sexually assaulting a slave in the house and her name was Chloe. So he had a relationship with Chloe. And Chloe got caught eavesdropping on the family. She was outside a room listening in, and to punish her they cut off her ears. Or maybe an ear. And so to get revenge she slowly poisoned the wife and children of the guy by, in the kitchen, poisoning food. And when she was caught doing that, she was killed, she was hung. And so, Myrtle’s plantation is said to still be haunted by her, if you go to the plantation in South Louisiana and go on tours, they’ll tell you about sightings of Chloe… And she had worn a scarf around her head after her ears were cut off, so y’know, you couldn’t see, and people knew the ghost was Chloe because the ghost has that green scarf on her head.

Context (as given by the informant):
When I was in middle school we did a tour of South Louisiana, a history tour where we went to different places, and that was one of the stories that we heard, that people regularly saw her ghost. If you take a tour there today they’ll tell you the story of Chloe.
The story is a way white guilt about the history of slavery gets manifest. It gets manifest in a way that is indirect, and frames Chloe as at fault.

Analysis:
The story is definitely intertwined with histories of oppression, and it both reflects and documents some of the injustices that occurred in the plantation era south. The use of the story as a tourist attraction is also interesting, as Myrtle plantation (and by association, Chloe) has been commercialized.