Cajun music, dancing and re-enactors in Vermilionville

One reason I spent so much time in Louisiana, especially around Lafayette, is because this area in many ways seems very distinct. It felt as if I was truly ‘somewhere else’. The weather, the food, the music, the swamps, the architecture and the pace of life are unlike any other place on my current travels.

Of course, even around Lafayette there are the ubiquitous Big Box chain stores and fast food restaurants, especially along the major freeways. But Cajun history and culture still lives here. As of the last census, 29% of the people in Vermilion Parish still spoke Cajun French at home. And I was told by one local that who your grandfather was still counts and has bearing on one’s social acceptance/status.

Keeping the Acadian heritage alive

The descendants of the original Acadian settlers from Nova Scotia–who are now the power-players in this area–have realized that their heritage is gradually being overwhelmed by the 20th and 21st Century America. To counter that trend and help preserve their Cajun culture the citizens of Lafayette established Vermilionville and staffed it with re-enactors and musicians.

(Trivia: Vermilion, BTW, was the original name for Lafayette and still is the name of the river in town. And Lafayette was the name of the Garden District in New Orleans before it was absorbed into the city.)

Every Saturday this group of musicians gets together at Vermilionville and plays traditional Cajun music. Anyone can come to listen to their “jam session” for free. On Sundays in this same performance space there is a dance, open to the public. The music is not always Cajun and there is a modest entry fee.

Bilingual re-enactors

At least some of the re-enactors are bilingual; I was greeted in French by these three. Sadly, my command of French has diminished to almost zero. There were, however, other tourists who were pleased to converse in French with them.

This woman told me the red-white-and-blue quilt she was making will go to a hospitalized veteran or to his family as a donation from Vermilionville. She makes several of them every year. The sewing machine, even though it is an old one, is clearly is from the 20th Century.

In the church a woman was making rosaries from seeds she had grown in her garden. They were for sale in the gift shop.

In a previous life: an L.A. session musician

This “fiddle” player had worked as a session musician in Los Angeles and later traveled the world with bands. Born and raised in L.A. in recent years he had come to work at Vermilionville. He told me that when he was in a Cajun band that went to Nova Scotia that the descendants of the remaining Acadians there said that their heritage was almost gone in Canada. For more about the roles of African-Americans in south Louisiana, go here.

The buildings at Vermilionville were of less interest to me than the farmhouse at the Longfellow-Evangeline historic site. The Vermilionville buildings, contents and furnishings were donated by local Cajun families and date back to a variety of eras in the past. The buildings, in particular, have been restored to a condition that is probably better than new and some are clearly new-built from the ground up. Then, there are anachronisms such as the sewing machine in the quilting room.

Obviously, a bedroom with a spinning wheel. I wonder if the quilt was made by the woman who was quilting in another building? Or if was a donation by a different local south Louisiana quilter.

The re-creation of a home of a successful 19th Century Cajun with a donkey and sheep in a barnyard.

The blacksmith was on a lunch break when I got to his place. There didn’t seem to be any horses on the property so making horseshoes wasn’t required. I should have come back later and asked about his work. One of my ancestors back in the 1700s was a blacksmith, first in Wales, then in upper New York State, so I find blacksmithing very interesting.

Saving history for future generations

School children tour Vermilionville every year and there is even a summer camp for kids. While Vermilionville is educational, the Longfellow-Evangeline historic site, though smaller, captures how this area of Southern Louisiana must have seemed to the original French Acadian refugees in the mid-1700s. Forced to flee Nova Scotia by the British in the 1750s, then forced out of New Orleans by people who saw them as not-quite-French farmers, the Acadians must have been shocked by the swamps and heat of southern Louisiana at first. Then they went on to thrive.

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