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II. 8. FRENCH SONGS AND BALLADS FROM
SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA
The towns on the east-west highway between New Orleans and the Texas border, the swamps along the coast, and the broad rice, cane, and cotton fields to the north and south of this highway have been until the last twenty years predominantly French-speaking. The people still have their own lore, their own patois, their own balladry, their own music, their own way of life, all rooted in the Norman-French culture they brought with them from Nova Scotia nearly two hundred years ago.
The tradition of folk music that this region has fostered, has received little or no attention.* As always, the townsfolk are a little ashamed of their country neighbors and their country neighbors' music. The boys and girls who come to college from the Cajun country are ashamed of being called "Cajuns." Meantime the ballad singers are still singing their ancient Norman ballads at country weddings, the fais-dodo bands creating their wild and fertile music at the rural dances. The songs in this section, the second collection of the kind, so far as we know, that has been published anywhere, will indicate, better than we can, what a rich storehouse of folk music is the Cajun country of southwestern Louisiana.
* A notable exception to this general neglect is the work of Miss Irene Therese Whitfield, Ph.D., of Louisiana State University, whose thesis on Acadian songs is shortly to be published. We wish to extend our thanks to Miss Whitfield for her invaluable work in making the preliminary transcriptions and translations of the songs in this section. Her collection, Louisiana French Folk Songs, has been published recently by the Louisiana State University Press. |
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