Beech Tree News Network

Our daughter, Nikki, and her husband, Thomas, drove up from New Orleans for a visit on Thursday evening.  We don’t see them very often.  Nikki started a new job last April and is still building up her PTO time, and Thomas works a two-week-on/two-week-off job on a lift boat out in the Gulf. 
    This visit coincided with our granddaughter’s birthday party.  Sabria just turned five years old, and Natalie scheduled a bouncy house event to celebrate.  The bouncy houses were set up in the middle school gym, and all of Sabria’s friends were invited.
 Sabria was thrilled that her Aunt Nikki and Uncle Thomas were here to celebrate with her. They are the sort who don’t stand back and watch the happenings, they get right in the middle of the action; in Thomas’ case, he is usually the catalyst for the action.  At this event, Thomas took on the role of the Bouncy House Monster, chasing the kids through the obstacle course, up the climbing wall and down the slide to the other side as they screamed their little heads off.  Nikki and I got in on the action by falling behind the group, pretending the monster had us by our legs as we reached the top of the wall, and begging for the kids’ assistance to pull us down the slide to safety.  It was great fun.
That evening, we sat around talking about the invention of scary characters like the Bouncy House Monster, and Thomas began to tell us about the folklore he was raised on.  He is a native of Louisiana, from the town of Galleano, of French Creole descendants.  The Bogeyman who struck fear in the hearts of children raised on the bayou was the Rougarou (pronounced rue-ga-rue).  He was a swamp wolf based on the French creature, Loup-garu or Wolf Man.  The Rougarou would grab kids who got out of their beds at night and drag them into the nearby swamp, never to be heard from again.  
Thomas said when he grew up he learned the motive for the character’s invention.  During his grandfather’s era, the parents planned late-night Cajun dance parties called Fait Deux Deux (roughly translated as “go to sleep” or in English it could mean beddy-bye).  The parents wanted the kids to stay in bed, so they wouldn’t have to worry about them wandering into the party, so the creature Rougarou was created for motivation to do so.
Swamp Ape was another invention that encouraged children to keep their bodies clean.  Swamp Ape was a Cajun Big Foot of sorts with abominable body odor. If you didn’t keep your body washed up, the warning was that you would start to smell like Swamp Ape then he would catch your scent and drag you back to the swamp to live with him. 
Thomas said not all of Cajun folklore has to do with monsters.  One of his favorites involves the small yellow flower that is the source for the name of a town near his called Golden Meadow.  The people call the flower “pis en lit” (roughly translated means pee the bed).  The children are told not to play in the meadows when the flower is in bloom in the spring or they will wet the bed that night.  This was also an invention of a past generation.  The flower stains clothing yellow and the stain is very difficult to remove.  The laundering method of the day was a tub of hot water and a wash board.  The moms used every trick in the book to motivate kids to keep their clothes clean. 
In the New Orleans area, Voodoo is often associated with the culture.  In the region where Thomas grew up, the culture leans more toward Hoodoo.  They differ in the sense that Voodoo is associated with the dark arts and Hoodoo has more to do with charms and spells or Gris Gris (pronounced gree gree).  They could be good luck charms you carried with you or bad luck spells you cast on an opposing team’s man at the free-throw line.  His favorite, chanted by the local high school was:
Gris Gris
    Patasa
        You’re gonna miss it
            Ha Ha Ha!
Thomas is such a fun-loving guy, as are the rest of his family.  He loves to joke around, especially with kids like Sabria and his nephew, Fin, who is Sabria’s age.  I’m sure it comes from growing up in the rich Cajun culture that he did.  Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.  If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”  I think the same applies to imagination and wonder.