Dedicated to Environmental Activist, Ms. Sharon Lavigne, Founder of RISE St. James and TIMES 2024 100 Most Influential Person

"We have prayed, cried, protested, been violated, attended public meetings, hosted various meetings, and tried everything imaginable. Our humanity has yet to be realized...." - Sharon Lavigne, March 28, 2023

Now listen carefully to what I am going to tell you because genealogy is everything along the estuaries of Di Pa Ça, that fabled land of defiant women. As our mothers used to explain, genealogy is key to understanding who talks to who, who’s feuding with whom, to whom you can say what, and who will still be here when the storm has passed. [1]

You see Dwarf Palmetto, that great magician of the woods whose deep green fingers fan out in all directions, laid his roots in this here soil some 80 million years ago, his children and their children’s children wading for countless generations in silty marshes where water meets land. With time, he came to be accompanied by Cypress and Oak, the former growing into a majestic throne perch for creatures of the sky, the latter becoming a dramatic and broad-chested sage, with limbs poised towards the heavens like a great orchestra conductor. Palmetto was fine with conceding fame to Cypress and Oak, as the wisdom of time had granted him understanding that none was more senior than Crawfish, who had actually been there before all of them.

In the land of Di Pa Ça, defiance was a form of devotion inherited from the Mother, and Palmetto was convinced that it all started with Crawfish. Crawfish never changed color. She was just as fiery, red-orange as the day God made her and she would be like this till the day her time here expired. Every morning, she would get up and push mud from the depths of the bayou to create land for her children to stand on and Ole Mississippi would come run change course and push the dirt right back. [2] And yet Crawfish never lost a beat, so implacable, courageous and diligent in her mission she was.

You might say Crawfish was even more implacable and contrary than a country girl’s hair on a hot and humid July day. You could slap as much Dixie Peach pomade as you like on her locks, and yet her curls would just pop right back up as soon as they hit that thick bayou air. Such was the nature of Crawfish’s persistence and a country girl’s hair. Defiant. And Dwarf Palmetto was convinced it was all related.

So when the refinery plants came to Di Pa Ça, Cypress looked to Oak, and Oak looked to Man, and everyone cried because they knew a great death was upon the land like they had never seen in their lifetime. But Dwarf Palmetto had confidence that it was the ways of Crawfish that would save them, and so he set out to seek her support.

Now, contrary to what y’all are probably thinking right now, Dwarf Palmetto didn’t have to go very far to find Crawfish. Cause when the news and the stench of the refinery plants had reached her doorstep on the Mississippi—she had just dug her pincers deeper into the Earth, planting herself firmer than firm, right there on the water’s edge. The way she figured, if they were gonna poison everything in God’s Creation, including the seeds of her fruit, then they were gonna have to do it looking her dead in the eyes. O yes, Crawfish! She was a warrior of a kind we rarely see these days!

The second she saw Dwarf Palmetto striding his way toward her house looking sharp and proud in his green suit and alligator skin boots, she knew exactly what he wanted, gleefully teasing him as he approached, “aww, shèr, don’t tell me you got all dressed up on ‘count of me!! [3] Where you been, bé?![4] How’s your mama? É tô piti-yé?[5] Your grandbaby still teething? I told you, grab some lizard’s tail ‘long the water there, boil that at bedtime and that’ll knock ‘em right out!!”[6] And then pausing to size him up for a second as he stepped onto her porch underneath the Oak tree, “Ha! Fix ya good for waiting so long to visit...well, I just finished a pot of filé gumbo! Com’on in!”

Dwarf Palmetto smiled and held the top of his hat as he crossed the threshold of her front door, exhaling with relief at the opportunity for respite from the smoldering late afternoon heat. And then setting up to fine tune her like his favorite country fiddle made from an old cigar box and wire from the screen door, he said “When have you ever known me to turn down a pot of Crawfish’s famous filé gumbo?!!” They both burst out laughing, knowing he never did lie about that!

Before Palmetto could fully take off his hat, Crawfish had already set a bowl of the thick brown stew before him with a scoop of piping hot rice in the middle and shrimp tails peeking through the steam rising up off the top of the bowl. Under the shade of their old friend Oak, Palmetto and Crawfish’s banter was a country waltz they both knew all too well.

“Boooy, they say I am a magician! But this here sure smells like some magic to me!”

Acting like she didn’t hear him, Crawfish said, “You want some tabasco with that, bébé?”

He got up to go wash his hands, “Things are in a bad way, Crawfish!”

She set the hot sauce bottle on the table. “Hmm hmm, don’t tell me! I know!”

He sat back down to taste his first spoonful, “Oak and Cypress been sayin’ Kompèr Lapin...”[7]

She cut him off, “Non, Bèt Piyant is behind it all” and then set the top back on the pot of gumbo, ready to commence the dance in the opposite direction.[8]

“Isn’t he disgusting with his filthy behind?” She filled the bottom of the coffeemaker with water.

“Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm! You outdid ya’self this time,” said Palmetto, savoring his third spoonful.

“Coming round here with his foul smell,” Crawfish still ignoring Palmetto’s compliments.

“That’s right. You never did lie,” he devoured the moist cornbread square.

“All selfish like we don’t have to breathe the same air!,” she reached for the sugar.

“So we’ve been talking about needing to do something,” Palmetto piped in perfect time, as the coffeemaker emitted a low-breathed whistle signaling a transition to the next song.

The sun was beginning to wax and Cypress’ needle-like leaves bristled and rustled in the light breeze as the cicadas performed a soundcheck in preparation for their entrance. Crawfish sat down for the first time to rest that day, placing three cups of hot coffee and chicory on the table. She looked through her screen door at the dimming light, casting its warmth over the Mississippi, and she remembered how that handsome body of water had first started carving its way through the valley some 70 million years ago. Half expecting the appearance of a third voice and half studying the depths to see what kind of wisdom she might pull from those waters, she readied herself to testify.

Now I know y'all get tired sometimes of the elders testifying about how things used to be dan bon vyé tem, but when Crawfish gets ready to juré, she’s really calling everything back to its origins, checking to see if you still have sense enough left in your head to remember where you came from. [9] So while Oak might have been a great conductor, he had nothing on Crawfish when it came to orchestrating the order of things. Tiny as she was, she had a way of commanding the power of big and small details.

“God taught us to love all, cause everything is everything that belongs to Creation,” she tapped her sagacious hands against the hard wood table. “But let me tell you, Bèt Piyant will test your limits with his conniving ways and well...Kompèr Lapin? He’s just a fool. Time has taught us that. The two of them always finding a way to weasel their way back into our lives with their schemes. Sometimes, I just think they’re the Creator’s way of testing and building our character. Just like Ole Man Mississippi tests me with his ornery self, pushing my day’s work back into the water every time. Aw shoot, shèr!,” she sucked her teeth. “He makes me so disgusted! But that testing builds character and all things in the world have character. It’s just a question of what kind we plan to have in these here parts.”

Palmetto shook in agreement, “Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie.”

Crawfish wasn’t finished juré-ing. In fact, the two of them were just warming up, but she paused for a second. The sky rumbled and jumped above, and the screen door sounded a slow creak and then a sudden “Thwap!” as the rusty spring pulled the door back shut behind Ti Monn, the third voice to finally enter. Ti Monn was the daughter of lightning and thunder, and subtle cameos were not her forté. [10] Blessed with beautiful dark eyes, she wore her heart on her sleeve and was affected by everything. Her mother—a native of Di Pa Ça and most definitely one of their top graduates of the School of Defiance—would flash across the sky fussing with her father, and her father, so captivated by her mother’s beauty, would chase her across the heavens with his booming voice. He was never quite fast enough to catch her, and so they would just go on like this for minutes, sometimes hours, and even days. You could chalk it up to crazy love or just some form of ole' country mess, but either way poor Ti Monn was just too sensitive to all the commotion and would fling herself headlong from the sky in despair, sprinkling the land with her tears.

At other times, her father would tell a joke—still in his booming voice—and Ti Monn would giggle so hard, she’d fall out of the sky inundating the land with fat drops of laughter. When she was distraught she cried, when she was happy she cried, and when she was excited she cried. But the problem was not what she was feeling but if she was feeling and what would happen if she stopped and the world became dry. Bondye! [11] No one wanted a repeat of the time Corn and Potato had fought over the love of Ti Monn and she became so frustrated by the idea of having to choose between the two, she hid herself within the heavens for a thousand years and seven days. When she finally came out of hiding, Crawfish surprised even herself with how happy she was to see the sky finally cry tears of joy and pain again. From that day forward, Crawfish promised that wherever Corn was to be found, Potato would be there too, and she Crawfish, would see to it that a cup of fresh coffee and chicory was always waiting for Ti Monn at the day’s end when she’d water the land with a late afternoon shower.

“Heeey!! Watcha’ll up to?!!” Ti Monn boisterously announced her arrival and then in her sweet voice, “You called, I came!”

“Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie,” Dwarf Palmetto chuckled, revealing a perfect row of white teeth. He was the definition of handsome precision in his aesthetic and delivery. But he wasn’t ostentatious and he loved sitting back and watching how Crawfish’s symphonies would come together in perfect time. Resuming their initial call and response, Crawfish replied to Ti Monn, and Palmetto backed her up.

Just sitting here talking about the state of things Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie
Bèt Piyant is back, spreading his stench
Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie This not the first and it won’t be the last Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie Round up the tribe and get organized Ain’t that the truth. You never did lie You never did lie You never did lie...

Before they knew it, all sorts of folks had gathered there along the water to join in the juré, including the cicadas which had commenced to keep the background rhythm and melody with their high pitched drone, and Bouki, the hapless, but good-natured hyena, who was tired of being tricked by Lapin. [12] But Crawfish was still at a loss for how they might outsmart Bèt Piyant’s cunning moves. She looked at the river again and then at Palmetto and Ti Monn. They could see a mix of determination and worry in her eyes. So Ti Monn, doing as she always did trying to alleviate others' pain, jumped in offering morsels of insight.

“Well, when I was falling from the sky, I saw Bèt Piyant over there in Ole Man Cantrelle’s field, talking with Lapin about stealing some potatoes and corn.”

Bouki, also eager to support, took his turn, “You know...Lapin has always been a greedy one when it came to eatin’ and we could certainly lure him in with a good crawfish boil. He’d smell it from miles away and come hopping.”

With new inspiration suddenly filling her eyes, Crawfish interjected, “Oooo, Ti Monn, girl!! That’s why I love ya! And Bouki?!...well, you just gave us the best idea!...The only thing I need all of y'all to do, is to show up tomorrow at the same time, but we’ll meet over in the field adjacent to Cantrelle’s plantation. We’re gonna set a trap for them, you’ll see!” And just like that, she adjourned the juré and everyone dispersed to their abodes, partly excited and partly curious as to what exactly Crawfish might be planning. Palmetto—fired up and confident that they were going to finally put an end to this mess with Bèt Piyant—hung back after the meeting to see if there was anything else Crawfish needed, “You sure you got everything straight for tomorrow?”

“Well, now that you asked...you and I both know there is only one thing that Lapin loves more than corn, potato, gumbo, fried chicken, boudin, and pecan pie put together!”

“Yes ma’am!!” And then lifting his eyebrows in agreement, he said, “I believe that would be some good cracklin’!” he chuckled and flashed his perfect white teeth again.

“That’s right!!! What you say, shèr!,” Crawfish exalted in finding a like mind to plan this daring ruse with. “So tomorrow, we’re going to throw a crawfish boil and shortly before we start receiving guests, I want you to go set loose the pigs from Cantrelle’s barn. If Ti Monn shows up on time as she promises, they’ll have plenty of mud to get distracted by, guaranteed. You get what I’m thinkin?”

“Ahhh hmm!,” they both burst out laughing in unison. Palmetto had caught the first hint of what Crawfish might be conjuring up, and he was quite content with himself for having decided to come see her and set all this in motion. As he paddled his way back up Bayou Kat Pat in his pirogue carved out of the body of his other friend, Cypress, he thought about how each of their lives was so dependent on the other. [13] He couldn’t help but feel complete oneness as darkness blanketed the land and the frogs nestled in the nooks of the bayou banks, sang wawa-ron wawa-ron. And then suddenly out of nowhere, both nostalgia and fear gripped his heart as he thought about what would happen if all this ceased to exist. Someone like Bèt Piyant could never understand that kind of love, he hummed to himself:

Shèr, mo linmé twa pli pasé ti koshon linmé labou Mo linmé twa pli pasé pwason linmé dolo
Shèr, mo linmé twa pli pasé ti koshon linmé labou Mo linmé twa pli pasé babinn linmé bèk dou

Dear, I love you more than a little piglet loves the mud I love you more than fish loves water
Dear, I love you more than a little piglet loves the mud I love you more than lips love sweet kisses

******

The next morning Crawfish was up bright and early, collecting the spices for their upcoming gathering because if there was anything the inhabitants of Pa Di Ça loved more than her filé gumbo, it was Crawfish’s crawfish boil and she wasn’t about to let that reputation go to waste, especially since it provided the ideal ruse for enticing Bèt Piyant and Kompèr Lapin. By midday a savory, pleasant aroma had begun to permeate the field next to Ole Man Cantrelle’s plantation and the inhabitants of the nearby bayous began to arrive with appetites to match. Bèt Piyant and Kompèr Lapin, acutely aware that they had not been formally invited, lay in wait observing what was happening from their perch in a nearby bush. But at around 2:55 pm in the afternoon, just short of the sun completing another 45 degree rotation, they started to get antsy as the blistering rays began to beat down on their backs. Dwarf Palmetto—Crawfish’s perfect partner in crime—had anticipated that Kompèr Lapin and Bèt Piyant would most likely seek cover in those bushes. So he timed the release of Cantrelle’s pigs for that exact moment, knowing that the two of them could neither resist the temptation to steal a fat pig nor withstand the late afternoon sun.

Kompèr Lapin, seeing the unleashed piglets roll around in the mud as a way of cooling themselves in the summer heat, started daydreaming about all the cracklin’ he could make from their juicy hides. Licking his lips, he said to Bèt Piyant, “Do you see what I see, my good sir?! Forget about Crawfish’s crawfish boil, we ‘bout to have some cracklin’ tonight, boy!!” Now, if Ti Monn was too sensitive for her own blessed good, then Bèt Piyant and Lapin were too conniving and focused in their pursuits to be sensitive to anyone but themselves. And to top it off, they consistently underestimated the determination and crafty defiance of an adversary like Crawfish. To them, she was small, and they had rarely in their lives taken time to observe the everything-ness of everything and how between, above, and below were all connected. And being that way, they failed to hear how a slight lilt in the wawa-ron wawa-ron of the frogs alerted you to when a water moccasin might be approaching or how a branch falling in the water could set off a chain of events transforming the entire bayou, sometimes for generations to come. So on that hot and humid day they did not notice that shortly after Crawfish had added Potato’s halves and Corn’s cobs to the boil, she had also set a cup of hot coffee and chicory next to the pot, at which point it commenced to rain and deep puddles of fresh mud began to aggregate along the road, further encouraging the mudfest that the piglets had so gloriously given themselves to in the late afternoon heat. Nor did they notice that Crawfish had left her post at the huge boil pot, instead leaving that job to the dutiful Bouki, who was equally eager to put an end to Kompèr Lapin after countless years of being the butt of his schemes and jokes.

Now, I know it sounds crazy and outrageous that they could be this oblivious, but they were! Instead, Lapin was busy elbowing Bèt Piyant, “this is our chance. You grab one of them by the tail and I’ll grab the ears. No way these ti koshon-yé gon’ escape us!”

“Yeah, yeah! I gotcha!” Bèt Piyant gave Lapin a high-five, “Tag team!”

They charged stealthily across the tall grass field pouncing at the first pig they could reach, sloshing in the mud at the other end of the road. They had a good grip on one poor piglet and may have gotten away with it, if not for one thing: the burning sensation they both suddenly felt, upon realizing that their derrieres were being attacked by something in the mud! Lapin jumped up and screamed, “Did you feel that?! Hot dog! That hurt!” He lifted up his behind, revealing a patch of red throbbing flesh. And yet, the pigs continued to slosh in the mud, seemingly unaffected by whatever was attacking the two of them. Then came another pinch, and another and another one. And then another, another, and another!

Finally, Bèt Piyant—no longer able to deny that a full blown attack against their behinds was underway—jumped up howling, “Oooo, lawd! My gogo is on fire! My gogo is on fire!!” Now everyone at the crawfish boil, curious about all the dramatic hollering and yelping coming from on that side of the field, started walking out to the road. Right there to that spot near Cantrelle’s that we know today as Piglet’s Bend. Leaning their necks out in unison like a flock of nosey ostriches, they found Lapin and Bèt Piyant flailing in the mud with pigs circling them, all of which they found both amusing and perplexing, which in turn made them more curious to find out what in the devil was going! But Bèt Piyant didn’t even notice the crowd forming, nor Ti Monn retreating behind the clouds as the rain slowly came to a stop. The pain was so awful, all he could think of was getting up out of the mud as fast as he could. And before Kompèr Lapin could say anything to convince him otherwise, Bèt Piyant was already scurrying down the road toward the limit of Pa Di Ça, leaving foolish Lapin sitting there in the mire with a red behind and a throng of fat piglets splashing mud in his face. One by one the town’s people burst into laughter. But the real coup de grace came when Crawfish and her accomplices emerged from the mud as the heroes who had dealt the deathly pinches. Who would have thought that such tiny, yet vicious creatures could hide in deep puddles formed by a late afternoon shower!!

At this point, you are probably wondering how in the world two individuals so foolish and juvenile like Bèt Piyant and Lapin even came to amass enough power to sully earth, wind, and water? And what business of it was theirs anyway, inserting themselves into the balance of bayou life, trying to run game on the inhabitants of Pa Di Ça every opportunity they got? In the scheme of the comings and goings of things over the course of 100 million years, who were they?....Well, my dear friends we could probably sit here for hours speculating about that and how the world came about into its current state. But as Crawfish showed us that day, there will always be mud to push, land to form, defiant women to form it, children to walk upon it, water to wash it away, and the courageous to form it back up again.

That evening as they sat around the bonfire waiting for Lalinn to emerge from the other side of the horizon, they savored Crawfish’s crawfish boil and sang a song to commemorate that day on which she and her kith and kin—through dint of courage and a spirit of defiance—outwitted cunning and drove that filthy Bèt Piyant out of town for good. [14] If you’ve heard this melody somewhere before, which I’m willing to bet you have, cause I sure have.....just remember, it all started with Crawfish and the folks out there on the waters of Pa Di Ça.

Tô maman é mô maman Y’ap asit koté difé
Tô maman di mô maman M’a fou difé tô drapo

Éy Bèt Piyant, to kanay! Kanay!
Ékou ékou bébé Achukma fehna dan dèyè Achukma (a)lon louté

Oh, look at our queen all dressed in red Sucking on a crawfish I bet you five dollars she'll stop you dead Si to toush ça ki pa tochènn

Éy Bèt Piyant, to kanay! Kanay!
Ékou ékou bébé Achukma fehna dan dèyè Achukma (a)lon louté

Krébis-la té di le Djab
To pe pa gin mô piti
Don’t come ‘round here and shake yo stank gogo. I’ll pinch dat ass on fiya!

Éy Bèt Piyant, to kanay! Kanay!
Ékou ékou bébé Achukma fehna dan dèyè Achukma (a)lon louté

Special thank you to Creole Language Consultant, Jonathan “radbwa faroush” Mayers, for assistance with translating key phrases into Kouri-Vini, Louisiana’s endangered Creole language. A full Kouri-Vini translation of the story by Clif St. Laurent is forthcoming.

Footnotes:

1 - Pa Di Ça means "Don't say that!" in Kouri-Vini.

2 - The crawfish often appears as a heroic warrior figure in Chitimacha, Houma, and Choctaw creation/origin and clan-specific stories. It is the crawfish who is believed to have formed land in the beginning of time through its consistent shoveling of earth and mud from underneath the water. For these reasons, the crawfish figures prominently on the United Houma Nation flag as their fearless mascot.

3 - Shèr means “dear” in Kouri-Vini.

4 - Bé means “bae” or short for “baby” in Kouri-Vini.

5 - É tô piti-yé means “And your kids?”in Kouri-Vini.

6 - Also known as lèrb-malo in Kouri-Vini and herbe à malo in French, Lizard's Tail is a plant that grows along the water and is used in Creole folk medicine for its anti-inflammatory and sedative properties. The plant is administered as a tea to teething babies, and people with rheumatism.

7 - Kompèr Lapin means "Brother Rabbit" in Kouri-Vini. Adapted from West African storytelling traditions, he is a mischievous, trickster character who frequently appears in Louisiana Creole folktales and other parts of the Americas where Africans, although enslaved, left an enduring cultural imprint.

8 - Bèt Piyant means “skunk” in Kouri-Vini. The literal translation is "stinky beast".

9 - Juré is a style of a capella call-and-response song with rhythmic handclaps once common in rural Creole communities. It is related to other African-influenced ring shout traditions found in the Americas, and in Louisiana is credited with being a forerunner to zydeco. Juré literally means "to swear an oath" in French, and it was originally an art form practiced typically by families during Lent, the forty days between Mardi Gras and Easter, when the playing of instruments and dancing was frowned upon.

10 - Ti Monn literally translates as "little world" and is a common term of endearment in Louisiana Creole culture meaning, "my dear".

11 - Bondye! means "Good Lord!" in Kouri-Vini.

12 - Bouki is also a character adapted from Senegambian storytelling traditions brought to Louisiana by enslaved people. In Creole stories, Bouki is often the butt of some type of trick, scheme or joke inflicted by the mischievous Kompèr Lapin.

13 - A pirogue is a dugout canoe usually made from a single log, traditionally used by Indigenous tribes for transportation and hunting throughout the circum-Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico regions, including Louisiana's swamplands.

14 - Lalinn means “moon” in Kouri-Vini.

15 - Achukma fehna means "very good" in the Choctaw language.

SIR DOLO

The Story of How Crawfish Drove Bèt Piyant Out of Town