This article from The Ind brings up old talk about what
is really Cajun. This kind of talk has
been going on for years. There are
different ideas thrown out in it but it does boil down to culture to me. I like Shane Bernard’s comment where he says Cajun
and Acadian are not synonymous. Of
course they’re not. Acadians came from
Canada and Cajuns come from Louisiana.
Same thing with Créoles. Créoles
are from Louisiana and they are not French.
French people come from France.
Both are a mixture of cultures that blended in Louisiana. So of course a McDaniel from Acadia parish is
a real Cajun and a McDaniel from Evangeline parish is a real … Cajun too, if he’s
“white.” If he is “black” he will be
considered Créole. You can’t ignore the
popular view of Cajun and Creole - it is seen as “white and black."
So, Cajun is a word derived from Acadian. People in heavily Acadian populated areas
influenced the area the most. They were
the main ingredient in Cajun gumbo. If
that is so, then what about the northern areas of Acadiana? The area was populated mainly by French. Take a walk through southern Evangeline
Parish cemeteries and look at the surnames.
Read through La Voix de Prairies and look through the genealogy of the
area.
This is an example of the genealogy of Evangeline
Parish. This is my personal genealogy
but it is similar to people’s background in southern Evangeline. My last name could be Pitre, Shuff, McDaniel,
Marcantel, Rozas, Reed, or Chapman instead of Hébert (Milan) and I would still
be a prairie Créole.
512 ancestors. These
are marriage connections and their branches up the tree. Each one of these people contributed to
culture of the area. They put something
in the gumbo.
Adan Hébert (Dad’s father) Elia Guillory (Dad’s Mom) Leo
Guillory (Mom’s Dad) Vergene Berzas (Mom’s mother)
Native American: 2–Adan
Italian: 4–Adan
English: 16-Elia and 9-Vergene
Irish: 4-Elia and
6-Leo and 1–Vergene
Acadian: 24-Leo and 8-Vergene
Spanish: 14-Adan and 14 Elia and 5-Leo and 4-Vergene
German: 8-Adan and
20-Elia and 11-Leo and 4-Vergene
French: 100-Adan and 74-Elia and 82-Leo and 102-Vergene
This is the breakdown from marriages and their ancestry and
the culture they passed down. The numbers work like this. Hebert married Guillory (French and French) Guillory married Chapman (French and English) Chapman married Pitre (English and Acadian) Pitre married Shuff (Acadian married German) Shuff married Fontenot (German and French) It stops of course at a point and is limited. It's mainly based within Louisiana. If that makes sense. It's not scientific and perfect but you get an idea of the makeup of my ancestry. This is similar to many of the old families in Evangeline Parish.
2-Native American
4-Italian
25-English
11-Irish
32-Acadian
37-Spanish
43-German
358-French
It wouldn’t matter if my last name was Shuff (one of my
German ancestors) and I was a direct German descendant. It’s all a matter of where you grew up and
culture you inherited. And Evangeline
Parish was majority French, mixed with all other people creating …. Cajuns or
maybe, just maybe, prairie Créoles?