Cabanocey: The History, Customs and Folklore of St. James Parish

I

THE FIRST ST. JAMESIANS: THE INDIANS

It is rather difficult to establish the exact location of the Indians who lived originally in St. James Parish as various tribes lived here at various times. Indians were a wandering people. Floods, wars, game, pestilence, and their white enemy made frequent changes in their abode necessary. But since the Houma and the Chitimacha lived in Ascension, the Mugulasha in St. Charles, the Bayogoula in Iberville, the Washa in Assumption, and the Acolapissa in St. John, it is to be assumed that parts of these tribes were frequently in St. James, which was the center of all these Indian lands. All these tribes were part of the Muskhogean group, except the Chitimacha, and they were often at war with each other. Yet by strange quirk of fate, the Houma, the Bayogoula, and the Acolapissa eventually merged into one group. Wars and the white man's civilisation proved to be their undoing and they fused for protection and survival.

When the first white settlers came to St. James, there were few resident Indians left. In the French census of September 1769¹ the following tribes, mostly migrants were listed on the Acadian Coast: The Taensa, the Chitimacha, the Pakana, the Alibamu, and the Houma. Old records show that for short periods several groups of Indians lived in upper St. James during the late 1700's. These were part of small tribes who moved to Louisiana about 1764 because of the cession of Mobile to England. Among them, the Alibamu, crossed to the right bank of the river about 1775 and later left the parish.

According to D'Abbadie's Journal an entry, dated April 6, 1764, states that eighty Pacana and Tunica Indians arrived in New Orleans from Mobile and asked for lands. He did not know where to place them so he sent them to camp with the Acolapissa above New Orleans until autumn. However, on the fifteenth the Tunica and the Pacana departed in two boats and established themselves on the west bank of the river near Bayou Lafourche. The Tunica were gentle but the Pacana caused much trouble and embarrassment by their drunkeness. In 1770 the Pacana were still in St. James but on the east bank of the river just below the Houma.

The largest group of Indians found here when the parish was settled by white men was a tribe of the Houma in the vicinity of the St. James-Ascension boundary. It is said that old Jacques Cantrelle² and le gros mico des Oumas³ visited each other in most friendly fashion. And since the Houma are so often mentioned in the early history of this parish, I shall tell their story.⁴

The Houma once lived in West Feliciana Parish near the shores of the Mississippi River. The Tunica moved in with the Houma about 1706 and massacred many of them. The remaining Houma fled and for a short time found refuge near Bayou St. John in what is now part of City Park in New Orleans. In 1709 the Houma moved to Ascension-St. James. The main body of the tribe lived in a large village over one mile from the river near the present site of Burnside in Ascension, but there were smaller villages scattered in that area and well within St. James.

Houma is a Choctaw word which means red and surely this color played its part in their lives. They painted their bodies red — their war emblem was a red crawfish — and it was their red pole marking the boundary of their hunting grounds which provoked the French into giving Baton Rouge its name. Perhaps a few characteristics and practices of the Houma people would be in order.

Their reed-palmetto cabins were arranged in double rows encircling a large open space where their ceremonies and games were held. At night this area was illuminated by a torch of long canes planted in the center. In their ceremonial dances the girls wore breech cloths and their bodies were brightly painted. Their hair was plaited and adorned with feathers. To keep time they rattled little dried gourds or waved feather fans. When an Indian was ill, at least two medicine men attended. One chanted while the other beat a drum which was made of an alligator skin tightly drawn over the end of a hollow log. When given a present a Houma would extend his arms and cry, Hou! Hou! Hou! These Indians cultivated tobacco, corn, squash, melons, beans, and pumpkins. Although they raised many chickens, they never used them for food. The chickens had been obtained originally from a shipwreck at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Houma looked upon them as objects of superstition and curiosity and allowed them to stay in their huts.

Many of the Houma tattooed their faces, blackened their teeth, and painted their bodies. This gave them a hideous and ferocious appearance. In winter the women wore fringed skirts and muskrat robes. On very cold mornings, when there was frost or ice, the Houma would bathe in the river and from this strange practice, many became ill and died.

In 1776 the Houma sold part of their land to Maurice Conway, O'Reilly's Irish nephew, and Alexander Latil and subsequently left, some going to Manchac, but the greater number drifting into Terrebonne Parish where their descendants still live. As late as 1784 there were twenty-five warriors under the chief, Natchiabe, still living at little Houma in Ascension Parish. At College Point and other places in the parish there are some Negroes who claim to be part Indian and certainly their features give tacit approval to this claim.

Some Indians, who are said to have lived near Gramercy, are credited with having taught Perique⁸ how to cultivate the famous tobacco which now bears his name. There was an Indian village on the Mt. Airy Plantation near Gramercy and legend tells us that they were Choctaws. However, since the Acolapissa were closely related to the Choctaw in language and culture and were a Choctaw-like people and since the Acolapissa had a very large village in neighboring St. John, it is probable that the socalled Choctaws of Mt. Airy were Acolapissa. As a matter of fact the Acolapissa had a small village near the river in the Mt. Airy-Gramercy area as early as 1722.

There is an Indian mound at Belmont. At one time there were three, but two have disappeared through erosion. This mound does not prove that Belmont was the home of the Acolapissa of 1722. As a matter of fact many mounds antedate the discovery of America and the Belmont mound only serves to show that Indians inhabited that section at one time or another. Then too, mounds were not always used for burial purposes as is commonly believed. Instead some were used for signaling, others as bases for temples, or places where sacrifical ceremonies were held. And in this low section mounds were necessary refuge during floods. Nothing is known of the existing mound at Belmont but many spooky stories are woven around it. Some people claim that on dark nights fen-follets6 are seen. Others say that the mound contains a cache of pirate treasure. Still others relate in round-eyed fashion that ghosts prowl there. Perhaps the feufollets are chasing the ghosts who are after the treasure. Who knows?

It is quite possible, too, that Perique tobacco, before mentioned as being of Choctaw or Acolapissa origin, could have been a product of the Houma. The early French explorers described the use of tobacco in the Houma ceremonials, one of which was the throwing of tobacco on a large cross. In 1700, Father Paul du Ru, Jesuit, erected a forty foot cross and a chapel in the Houma village of West Feliciana Parish. Thus some of the Houma were Christianized before their migration into St. James. One of the first Houma baptized was an Indian infant who was named Francis Xavier as was the Houma Chapel.

Another Indian relic found in the parish is a shell mound near the present town of Vacherie. It has become known as Shell Hill as has the plantation there. Originally this mound was approximately thirty feet high and five hundred feet wide at the base. The old residents relate that the mound was built by the Indians who came after the white settlers, and so it is possible that the mound was built by the Pakana or Alibamu. The shells of this mound are being used in road building and in scooping up the shells, the digger frequently finds an Indian skeleton in flexed position. This proves that the mound was not built by the Houma or the Acolapissa as this was not their burial custom. They put their dead on posts.

But no doubt the most curious imprint left on the people of St. James by their Indian predecessors is the use of an Indian stone in the treatment of poisonous snake and insect bites, as well that of mad dogs. It is usually called the mad stone of Vacherie, because it has been in the possession of a Vacherie family for many generations.

This small brownish stone, which is smooth and flat, was formerly about three inches in diameter. It is now worn and broken into two small pieces, each the size of a small coin. An old Indian gave it to an early German settler named Webre.⁷ Where the Indian obtained it is another matter, but legend tells us that it originally came from the entrails of a deer. It has been handed down from generation to generation and today it is in the possession of the Gravois family of Vacherie.

But the strange part of this story is that for years on end this stone has been applied to venomous wounds to draw out the poison. When placed upon a wound, the stone sticks and draws the poison out. When saturated it drops off. Then it is washed and readjusted. This procedure continues until the stone no longer clings because all the poison has been extracted. I have never seen this magic stone at work and, frankly, I am quite skeptical, but I do know that every year many people go to Vacherie to have the stone applied and, strangely, do not succumb to snake bite. And since St. James has many species of snakes, four of which are poisonous, the Vacherie stone is in frequent use and there are many who still attest to its enchanted power.

And so from magic stone and mysterious mound to peculiar Perique tobacco, the Indians have left the imprint of their passing on the history of St. James.

Footnotes

1. Papeles de Cuba, 187 A, Archive General de Indias.

2. Jacques Cantrelle — first French commander of St. James.

3. Le gros mieo des Oumas — the big chief of the Houma.

4. Facts about the Houma taken from: Swanton, John Reed. Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast.

5. Perique — One of the earliest settlers whose real name was Pierre Chenet

6. Feu follets — will-o'-the-wisp.

7. Webre — the first Webre who came to Louisiana was Johann Webre of Fort Kehl, Baden. He and his wife, Marie Stadler, were listed in the Louisiana census of 1724. The Webre of this story is no doubt his descendant.

II

THE COMING OF THE CANTRELLES

Perhaps if we look back into the era of the founding of St. James Parish, we shall understand better the problems which faced our rugged forbears and we shall appreciate more fully their way of life.

At that time there were but a few thousand persons in and around New Orleans. The sole communication between the city and the river posts was by slow pirogue or canoe. Roads were but dangerous paths through the forests and floods were a common occurrence. Distance was measured by league, money was counted by livre,¹ and land was obtained by grant. Men were minors until twenty-five, yet women were married at fourteen. Alimony was paid in barrels of corn and cords of wood. Indigo, tobacco, and corn were the main products of the Louisiana plantation and the sugar industry was yet unborn.

Although there were settlements in St. John, Ascension, and Pointe Coupee Parishes, St. James long remained a wilderness untamed. The first attempt to settle this parish was made by the French Duke de Charost and his son, the Marquis d'Anceny. They obtained a land grant in the Gramercy-Mt. Airy area from the French government and sent large supplies and one hundred persons under the management of Sieur de L'Epinet to establish the settlement in 1720. Seven ships bringing over four thousand colonists arrived in Louisiana in the early part of 1720 and the people of the Charost-d'Anceny concession were part of that group. However, in March 1722 all the supplies of this concession were stroyed by fire and d'Anceny ordered de L'Epinet to abandon the concession. Thus the attempt to settle St. James by grant to a French nobleman failed.

Some reference is made here and there to the presence of white settlers among the Houma, but little information is available. In the records of the Superior Council of Louisiana dated August 5,1747, mention is made of Sieur Joseph Blanpin, settler at the Houma. Since Blanpin was a trader and had a domicile in New Orleans at that time, it is quite possible that he was frequently at the Houma village for purposes of trade but that he was not a permanent settler of Ascension or St. James.

However, according to the American State Papers, Vol. 2, p. 230, one Matthias Frederick inhabited and cultivated a tract of land facing the Mississippi River just below the Vacherie Road in 1756 when an order of survey was given by the French Government. In the earlier official census of 1724 Matthias Frederick was listed as a good worker, a Catholic, age 29, with wife, one child, an orphan girl, and living on the German Coast. No doubt this was the same Matthias Frederick who had moved from the German Coast into St. James Parish between 1724 and 1756. This proves that there were scattered settlers within the parish before the coming of the Cantrelles.

But it was understandable why St. James was settled later than other river sections. As before mentioned the parish was the center of warlike Indian tribes. In fact Indian raids on some river settlements and lone settlers continued as late as 1748. The land, too, was low and flooded often. But surmounting many of these difficulties, Cantrelle, the adventurer, blazed the trial and came to St. James. And since he was one of the earliest settlers, and certainly the first accredited ruler, I shall tell the story of his life. It was a full life . . . that of a pioneer, a builder, and a dreamer ... a strange life in a strange new world.

In 1720 Jacques Cantrelle came to Louisiana from France on the little braque, Le Profond, on a voyage which took three months and seven days. He was a member of the personnel of the Natchez concession. In 1729 almost the entire Natchez colony was wiped out in the Indian massacre and how Jacques Cantrelle escaped is indeed a hair-raising story.

Cantrelle quickly realized that the Indians were attacking. He immediately closed his house, and with his wife hid in his corn-house, scarcely daring to breathe. But fate had set its seal and, miraculously, the Indians did not search there. Mr. and Mrs. Cantrelle remained hidden until darkness set in. Then they gathered together a few light possessions and fled through the woods. But Cantrelle had forgotten some article which he wanted most to save, so he sent his wife on to a designated place to wait for him, while he retraced his steps to his home. Then clutching his valuables he fairly flew to his tryst — but his heart stood still — his wife was not there. He searched everywhere but not finding her, finally came to the river. There was a pirogue and he escaped! Lucky Cantrelle! Of the entire Natchez colony only twenty men survived and he was one of them — but his wife was killed.

He immediately went to New Orleans to obtain help from the Superior Council in the form of a loan — a strange loan: thirty barrels of rice in straw and a cow. With this and four of his slaves, whom he later recovered, he established himself on land near New Orleans, at Kenner, and began anew to build for the future. And then on April 16, 1730, he took unto himself a second wife: Marguerite Larmusiau LeChoux, a widow, whose first husband, a Yazoo store keeper and interpreter, had perished in the Natchez massacre also.

The Cantrelle family and fortune grew and in the census of 1731 we learn that Cantrelle had an habitation sur le long du fleuve,² a wife, a step-daughter, two children, one workman, four slaves, two horses, and deux hommes d'armes³ — no doubt, the latter a protection against the Indians.

In 1735, Cantrelle purchased a lot in New Orleans and not long after, he moved to the city where he became an employee of the Superior Council. In the quaint French city — la Nouvelle Orleans — he took his place as a useful and sociable member of the community. There was seldom a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral — a succession or a sale — a trial or a ball — but that Jacques Cantrelle was there as guest, witness, or official. He gave away brides, christened babies, wrote for the unlettered, witnessed sales, executed wills, appraised crops, sold slaves, loaned money, signed documents, and had a hand in the affairs of church and state.

Early one hot July evening in 1763 as Jacques sat on his porch, he heard loud cries and saw people running into