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 Bayou
Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun
Coast
Mike Tidwell
Pantheon Books
REVIEW BY LISA MACKIE
"If a foreign enemy
were taking away twenty-five miles of American soil from us
every year–year after year–just taking it away from
this nation and not giving it back, we would certainly go
to war to stop it, wouldn't we? Wouldn't we?"
asks conservationist Kerry St. Pe, one of the bayou residents
meandering through Mike Tidwell's tale of environmental and
cultural loss, Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death
of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.
The message urgently being delivered through this book is
that the Louisiana coast and marshland are rapidly disappearing,
at the rate of 25 square miles per year. With this loss will
come the collapse of the fishing economy and the varied cultures
based on the estuarine system.
While each chapter is introduced by an evocative black and
white image of bayou life, Tidwell just as skillfully reveals
a picture of the people he encounters through his journeys:
poor but self-sustaining Cajun shrimpers, deeply knowledgeable
of the waterways and animal life; scientists and conservationists
trying to alert people to the problem and stave off the ecological
disaster with time running out; Vietnamese immigrants who
have adapted skills learned on the Mekong and often prospered,
hoping for a different way of life for their children; and
beleaguered members of the indigenous Houma tribe, pushed
to the end of the land which is now being swallowed up by
the sea.
The main problem, though not the only one, is the strict
control of the Mississippi River, which prevents flooding
and the deposit of new sediment. The land, just like in the
more widely-known case of Venice, is sinking.
"For years Louisiana has dominated this force of nature
totally, and for years the strategy has worked pretty well.
With levees and canals and pumps, people were able to live
all along the coast without fear of floods while catching
lots of seafood and extracting lots of oil. The only problem,
as we all now know, is that the arrangement isn't sustainable.
If you manage the coast to death, that's what it does, it
dies," warns Dr. Denise Reed, a marsh geomorphologist.
Mike Tidwell learned all of this in an apparently haphazard
fashion, hitching rides on shrimp boats and, in exchange,
working as a deck hand, helping to bring in the catch. Like
the Mississippi itself, his story takes us on a circuitous
path, alternating anecdotes of alligator wrestling with carefully
researched descriptions of the processes taking place–the
death and decay of marsh grass, for example.
The overall effect, however, is anything but haphazard, as
Tidwell deftly brings us to an understanding of the whole
picture of the forces at work–the mighty river, the ocean,
the oil companies, years of government corruption, cultural
prejudice, and the interconnectedness of Cajun culture, language,
and livelihood with the land and water.
The only thing one might wish is that this story were told
by one of the shrimpers, crabbers, or conservationists who
have spent their lives witnessing the changes taking place.
One imagines that Tidwell's experience only scratches the
surface of the rich culture and profound loss.
At one point he visits a Native American traiteur,
or healer, Lawrence Billiot, to see if he can help
with his back problems. The healer has a wealth of knowledge
that he freely shares about all kinds of ailments and the
plants that can cure them (boiled Spanish moss is good for
hemorrhoids, for instance), what they are called, and where
to find them. Unfortunately, Lawrence Billiot can neither
read nor write, so all his knowledge can only be shared through
telling. If the land and marsh disappear, and all the coastal
communities are dispersed, there may be no one left to listen.
Click
here to read the interview with Mike Tidwell.
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