Tomie Davis
Dulac, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “Some of my favorite traditions are cooking my grandma’s file gumbo recipe that has been passed on in the family. And I recently have been trying to learn Cajun French. I remember growing up and knowing when the adults were talking about something really interesting because they would start talking in Cajun French” Being UHN “Makes things a little more interesting. Especially with my background and how far I’ve come. Like as a little girl, and being part of the program and stuff. It’s a cool thing because there’s not a whole lot of tribes so it gives you that uniqueness.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “Definitely the friendliest culture. Everybody helps everybody, that’s what I like about down south. Everybody knows everybody.” Listen
Louise Billiot
Dulac, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Dancing Being UHN “I believe that the creator makes us. When we were born he decided I would be in this and he decided that’s what was best for me. “I feel like I have to live and find the purpose for me by making me Indian.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “When I was younger I was happy. I felt loved by my parents and the community, the whole Indian community, everybody in the community. They didn’t holler at us kids, they didn’t beat us… don’t get me wrong, they disciplined us. They made sure that we respected people, especially our elders.” Listen
Kacie Fields
Cut Off, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “Before COVID took over, powwows definitely. Just seeing everyone in traditional clothing and participating in stuff that is special to our culture is really warming. Like it just feels right to be able to celebrate the way that we do everything, and it just be an us thing. It’s not something that everyone can come to. It’s something that just UHN members can go to, and it’s something that I feel like strengthens our connection to each other.” Being UHN “That everywhere I go there is people everywhere that I have a connection to solely because I’m part of the United Houma Nation.” RJ came speak to the class and I found out that we’re related and then we started talking after and we were talking about some things in our past and we didn’t even know, and then like I went meet with Greyhawk today and we were talking about stuff that like we just automatically connected about things we shared in our culture. “Without even knowing each other prior to meeting, we just automatically got along, and like he was like just give me your number and if you ever are interested in talking about anything just give me a call or a text and we can talk about it. I’m a very open book. I feel like our community is very open, and I feel like we support each other really well. If you’re every going through something you have so many people to back you in whatever you’re going through.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “I really loved growing up. I’m still growing up in South Louisiana. I learned something new about my culture and this area every day. I feel like one of the biggest things is when I was a kid, I didn’t realize how important living here was, specifically with my connection to the land, because whenever I was a kid I didn’t realize how different I was than other kids based on how my family treated the land and how important we held it. My great grandmother, she taught us so much about plants and how you can use them for different things like food and you can use them for medicines and how each plant has a bunch of different uses. Like when I was a kid, and I’d get sick, she would just pray over us and we’d use some sort of plant. She would make it, we just trusted her. It was just one of those things, and that’s how she treated us. We never went to a doctor or anything, and all of my friends always went to doctors and stuff, so like when they’d get sick I’d say why don’t y’all just use this, and they were like what are you talking about how does that even work. I didn’t realize until I get older that was a UHN thing. That was a Native American way. That was our culture, and that was how we treated ourselves through what was provided to us through the land because we weren’t provided with access to medical care before recently. So, we had to make our own medicine and stuff and that’s just what we’ve always been accustomed to. Using the land for crops, for medicine, for anything really. Growing up down here, we were able to utilize a lot of things that grow down here and that was really important.” Listen
Charlie Duthu
Houma, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “I like the awareness of the Indians. What’s happening now is the Indian awareness that’s going on, and I think it’s too good because even though I’m a French Indian, I, this is how I live my life. I put God first, then my family, then my heritage.” Being UHN “Right now, it means when I see how the UHN is evolving and is transforming. I was on the Tribal Council back in 1977-1978 and it was kind of stuck. Now, I see it’s starting to evolve into something bigger and better. I don’t know if it’s the young people that’s doing it, but I feel now that we are ready to be recognized by the federal government. I feel with the leadership we have now, and the council of people, I feel that the time is right to be federally recognized and like what you are doing, what Brody’s doing, Brendan, that’s only gonna help our cause.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “It was so good, loved it. I lived off Barrow Street in a shotgun house, we were poor. White poor people, we were the only Indian family. Behind us was black people. It was an area of town called Deweyville, predominantly black. I went to Indian school. My brothers before me they, the Indians before me were taught by the MacDonell Methodist Center. They taught the Indians who didn’t have school, and when it became 40 Indians, MacDonell had too many to teach so they approached the school board. The school board took the Gainesville school. It was a white school. They moved the children to Honduras and made it a Indian school. But back then, we only had up to the eighth grade. Eventually, we had a high school. How it was me growing up, I would go the people in my neighborhood, the white kids, I’ll tell you two stories. There was some pretty dancers at the Municipal Auditorium, I went with my friends. Playing the music, we were dancing, being kids. They found out, I don’t know how, I went to Gainesville School.” Listen
MorningDove Verret Hopkins
Bayou Blue, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “Oh my god, I got too many! I have a lot of traditions, one of my favorites is like family gathering. To see my kids, my sisters and brothers, my grandkids, my great grandkids. All of the holidays, I’m the one that does the cooking. Everybody offers, and I always tell them I’mma do it, imma do it, i got it going. And everybody gathers at my house and they eat until they just can’t move. And then they go ‘oh momma I can’t go no more’ or ‘granny oh I’m just so full.’ So I guess of all of the traditions, that’s the way my mom and them was and my grannys and all. We never, never ate by ourselves, we always, even with 10 sisters and brothers, mom and dad, that was 12, and then we always had either uncles or grandpas, somebody, it was always extra people. And my mom used to cook all of that, can you imagine? Make homemade pies, sweet potato pies, boyee pies they call it, and it was all with sweet dough, you could hurt yourself. I just kept it up, as long as I could remember, I had done the same thing. So, I think that’s one of my favorite traditions in the world. There’s a lot more, but that would have to be my favorite, family gathering. That is why I guess powwows and ceremonies like that, I guess that’s why I enjoy all of that so much because even if those people are not blood families, they’re still family you know.” Being UHN “Oh everything, really, just being native means everything, you know? There’s so many things that’s wrapped in saying you’re native, it’s just not just one thing you know, it’s the way you’re raised, what it means is, what your mom and dad passed down to you. I was raised with 99%, my mom, my grandmother, her mother, which passed away at either 107 or 110. I’m trying to remember right now, and I think she delivered half of her tribe. We used to laugh and say she delivered half of the Houma people. Those was all the medicine people, I was old before I was ever ever went to a doctor. We was always healed by these people with herbs and prayers. So things like that for one, and it’s so different from now. It wasn’t cool to be an Indian when I was coming up, couldn’t speak English, you know. And it was hard, but as long as we was in the community that was ours it was good, it’s just that when you went into the white world, it was not nice then you know. A lot of things was not good. People didn’t treat you good. You were at the end of the totem pole, you know my dad used to say “take the blows baby, take the blows one day those people gonna wanna be what you are today.” That was hard for me to understand being very young, why would those people want to be if they gonna treat me like this? He was right, as I got older I found that out. It’s how you’re raised, it’s all about how you keep your tradition, you believe. It’s a bunch of stuff, like a gumbo pot mixed together, to be native is awesome. If I had a choice of being anybody else in this whole wide world, I don’t care who it is, I just want to be Dove, with what I know, that’s it, just Dove. Even the bad, even the bad stuff in the past, made Dove who Dove is, so I’m okay with all that.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “Well, like I said, as a young girl, not that good. It was good up until my dad passed away because my dad trapped fished and hunted for a living. So we actually lived by the four seasons, like most tribal people did. I was hardly ever, ever with white people until I got like until my early early teens like 13. We was sent to school but not often because see we didn’t have to go to school and not being able to speak English hardly just a few words, that was hard. I think because now that I got older, I have a little different, kind of a different understanding. Since we was off shore almost 9 months out of the year, when we come inland to our house that was inland from the camp, we didn’t know too much of nothing. When it came to school we didn’t know much of nothing, you know. So the teacher, I imagine had already taught these other Indian kids x amount of things lets say, and here we are coming in once in a while with hardly knowing anything, so the patient wasn’t there that needed to be with us.” They didn’t want us to speak our language, so I can remember not knowing how to say water, how to ask to go to the bathroom. I didn’t know those words, because I was raised only speaking our way. Yeah it was rough, they would hit you with rulers, “You have to learn English, you have to get civilized, you have to learn English,” they thought was not civilized, it was not too good. My dad passed away at 39 years old and we had ten kids. Everybody that could go to work, went to work and I remember my mom crying saying “you’re too young, you can’t leave the house you’re too young.” I left anyway and I waitressed, I had a good boss though, I waitressed for these people for nineteen years. I memorized the menu, I didn’t even know how to read it, I actually memorized it. I had a girlfriend that helped me that was working there and she helped me memorize it. I knew
Ann Luster Robichaux
Theriot, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Use of garfish scales in traditional jewelry Being UHN “It’s almost like it’s a dying art, as I find as the generations go on, a lot of the kids, the younger generation aren’t keeping it up. So, I find it’s important as far as being a tribal member to keep it alive because once all that’s gone you have no tribe.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “It’s awesome and it’s still awesome. I told my mom when I was 18, I’m moving and getting away from here but then I bought a house 2 miles up the road from her. It’s amazing on the bayou.” Listen
Lora Ann Chaisson
Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Cooking and basket weaving Being UHN “Knowing there’s only 17,000 of us in the world and there’s only one of me and the fact that I am one of 17,000 is so special to me. “It’s not like you can go across the country and get an Houma Indian, so that is special to me. “Some tribes get all these extra benefits, while we don’t get any benefits. We work hard for everything we have.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “I feel blessed even with all of the prejudice growing up to be a part of my community “Everything I’ve been through has made me who I am today, and now I am a strong Houma woman.” Listen
John Rodrigue
Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Fishing Being UHN “ A good thing about it is that tribes can get together and teach their children their heritage.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “We fished a lot, shrimp, a lot of commercial fishing. As far as playtime, you made your own playtime.” Listen
Clyde Billiot
Golden Meadow, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “We loved swimming, playing in the bayou, climbing my aunt and uncles trees. Can’t go wrong. We used play sticks, where you take a stick and throw it and see wherever it lands. We used to play that a lot.” Being UHN “ It means when you get together you are a group. You stand for one. It sounds like a whole bunch of different people, but you stand for one.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “There is no place like home. I’ve been all over the United States and even outside of the United States and there’s nothing like coming home to Louisiana. I don’t know if it’s smelling the muddy water and seeing those oak trees and knowing that you’re home.” Listen
Regalia
By Jade Hawkins, photo editor REGALIA Houma women from three generations — Jasmine Rain, Morning Dove and Bette Billiot — wearing traditional regalia that would be normally worn for ceremonies, dancing or prayer. They are all holding their shawls and feather fans, both would be used in dances. MorningDove says she loves to dance with her shawl and flicking the fringe as she moves a look at morning dove MorningDove’s love for otters has been fostered since she was a little girl. As a child, her family had a family of otters living on their land, and when one would accidentally find its way into one of her dad’s hunting traps, they would use the otter’s fur. MorningDove specified that they do not kill an animal in order to wear it, they get the fur when the animal gets trapped by accident or a roadkill. As she got older and began making her own Regalia, she continued using otter pelts by tying them in her hair. “When you dance with an animal that means the animal is dancing with you. You are dancing with their spirit, in other words they are still living,” says MorningDove. MorningDove’s Moccasins were a gift from her mother, Irene Hamilton, who beaded the shoes and made sure to include cheyenne turtles. Irene Hamilton passed away a few years ago and MorningDove likes to wear these moccasins in honor and remembrance of her mom. Eagle feathers are of great importance to the Houmas. They believe that because an eagle can fly the highest, then they can carry your prayers up to the heavens. When an eagle feather falls, it is prayed over and cleansed and then is used in spiritual ceremonies and/or Regalia. MorningDove has a fan of eagle feathers tied together by beading with the feature of a turtle. Turtles are MorningDove’s favorite animal and is meant to symbolize “a long life.” MorningDove highlights turtles on almost all of her Regalia. a look at Jasmine Rain Jasmine Rain makes sure that every Regalia outfit that she wears highlights her beadwork. Her beading was gifted to her by her uncle, Randy Sulliman, who is a member of the Choctaw tribe. Beadwork takes many hours to complete, so any gift of beadwork is often cherished. Jasmine Rain’s crown is also a part of her beadwork. For traditional ceremonies, her grandma, MorningDove, will place an eagle feather that was gifted to her by her uncle in the back of the crown as a ploom. Jasmine Rain will then dance with that eagle feather in the competitions often hosted at powwows. Jasmine Rain is the current Junior Miss Princess of the United Houma Nations and she loves to be able to represent her culture. Jasmine Rain says “I love having the opportunity to live my great-grandparents dream, and do it for people who could not.” On the side of her eyes, Jasmine Rain did a design of earth paint. She explains it is similar to that of war paint but this is a special clay made of materials important to the Houma culture.