Interview with Levy Charpentier II
Continued interview with Levy Charpentier; Dean Charpentier, student at Nicholls, serves as translator;
00:00:10 - Bootleg whiskey;
00:02:10 - Talks about how to build a traînasse; Small dams; Golden Meadow; Traînasse de Bayou Rainbow; Yankee Canal;
00:06:15 - Cote Blanche; They didn't finish one of the canals because they ran out of money (they can't remember the name of the canal); It's closed now;
00:08:30 - Carmondale (?); He knew the Dufrene family that lived there; Near Lake Salvador, Little Lake;
***Show Chris***00:09:20 - He played the violin/fiddle; They had to use smoke to get rid of the mosquitoes so they could play; He played for several years; Joe Perrin in Golden Meadow; Alfred Collin and Guidry (?); They used to have dances in the yard; He would bring his violin with him; He played in Grand Isle and Fourchon; They would work early and stop in the late afternoon then have a dance;
00:12:20 - Timbalier; Traînasses grew into bayous; Felicite Island; Once they dammed the bayou, no fresh water came in so the ridges and waterways got smaller;
00:13:50 - His father and grandfather were born and raised in that area; His great-great grandfather moved straight from France to Cutoff;
0014:50 - Community members; They had a judge; They used to not have official trapping seasons; They had Dr. Dominic Adams in Larose; Folk medicine; He is a treater; Herbs and leaves; His maternal grandfather, Joe Chouest, was the best treater;
00:18:00 - They would boil leaves for tea; Dr. Segue; Used to go by boat to church; Mules;
00:21:40 - His father built boats; 13-14 hour work days; They had cypress in the back; Cyprière is what they call cypress and sunken cypress;
00:23:15 - His father's boats were 32 to 40 feet long; Sternwheel boat; They had a big wheel in the back; 45 to 50 feet long; Steamboat;
***00:26:25 - Canal from Lockport to Houma; It was real narrow;
***00:27:10 - His great-great-great grandparents came from France; All of the towns around there are at least 150 years old;
00:28:18 - The last year his father grew rice was in 1904; They put up a dam in 1905 that stopped the fresh water; They would flood the rice in the fields; Didn't grow sugar until a long time after they stopped growing rice;
00:30:30 - They killed rabbits with sticks on Felicite Island; They didn't work on Sundays, so they would go hunt rabbits without guns;
***00:31:20 - Jean Lafitte's gold; They had some hogs that were digging and found a box with gold; This is his maternal grandmother's story; Bought land near Galliano with the money;
00:33:45 - Lesquine (?); About four families that lived there; His uncle lived there for a few years; Not a lot of people living in Fala; Periac (?);
00:35:35 - Cemetery at Bayou Zin Zin (?); Grand Bayou;
00:37:20 - Roussell; Billeaud; Bayou de Pointe-aux-Chenes; The Naquins; They were fishers and trappers; They would trade instead of buying things;
Different interview? Sounds like two interviews playing at the same time or background conversation***;
00:40:10 - Muskrats; Trapping in St. Bernard; 1926; Canals;
00:44:20 - Harvey Canal to get to New Orleans; Westwego; Fishermen built the canals; Westwego and Larose were the most important canals for fishermen in the old days;
00:46:20 - His father made a living on oysters and shrimp;
00:47:11 - His first digging machine costs $3,000 to build canals; This was about 30 years ago; Trappers built their ditches by hand;
00:49:00 - Scully Canal and Yankee Canal; Bayou Money (?);
00:52:50 - Wilkinson's Canal; Leeville Canal; There are two Little Lakes; Kings Canal;
00:56:00 - Golden Meadow farms was a plantation; Trapping isn't as good anymore; They used to go catch crawfish on the other side because of the fresh water;
00:58:35 - Chitimacha Indians; Squatters rights with canals and traînasse;
