Louisiana Creole

We stayed a couple of days in Louisiana.  Perhaps we should have stayed in New Orleans, but neither of us wanted to fight the crowds and traffic.  Instead we stayed in the northern part of the state (Natchitoches was the town), but still a Creole area.  Many of the town and street names are French (though Natchitoches is an Indian name), sugar cane is a major crop, and you see fleurs-de-lis everywhere.  The fleur-de-lis is widely used in France, basically to show how fancy you are.  I loved that even the trash hopper had a fleur-de-lis!

 We visited a couple of local plantations.  The houses had large verandas to sit outside.  A lot is done to encourage air flow to stay cool.  A row of trees (Live Oak Allee) was planted to direct air flow into the house. Finally, mansion dining rooms have a punkah above the table.   A punkah is that white thing you see hanging from the ceiling.  It's a fan that is powered by a child or servant pulling a rope over and over.  Not only does it cool, it keeps flies off the food.  

The house was an interesting mixture of years.  It was built in 1821, but the same family lived in it until 1999.  Furniture and household items are from varied years.  So, at one point the guide talked about rotary-dial phones on a party line (something that I grew up with) and then spoke about slaves that were summoned by pulling a cord (not something I grew up with!).

 

Of course I had to see a cemetery.  The one we saw was weird.  Many of the gravesites were like New Orleans with graves above ground, but many were underground.  Not sure why both types were used.