Attakapas, Louisiana

Submitted for the LA GenWeb Archives by Frances Ball Turner, Jan. 1998.



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Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives

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History of Louisiana, by Chambers

Vol. I., pg. 270

Chapter:  First Coming of the Acadians

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"All over Southwestern Louisiana were broad stretches of prairies whose

succulent and abundant grasses made ideal grazing grounds.  To this region

known as the Attakapas, (footnote:  Pronounced Tuck-a-paw.) meaning

"man-eaters," so named from a resident tribe of Indians supposedly given to

canabalistic practices, went these Acadians with their cattle.  Sluggish

streams or bayous traverse this region.  Small wooded clumps of "isles" dot

its surface, resembling oases in a level desert.  Along its eastern edge

meanders one of the most picturesque streams of America, Bayou Teche,

flowing between its twin fringes if Druidical oaks.  On this stream was

located the old post of the Attakapas, now St. Martinville, which shares

with the posts of Opelousas and Natchitoches the distinction of being

historically significant in the colonial chronicles of the western section

of the state.  Along the Teche stand several "Evangeline Oaks" named after

the heroine of Longfellow's famous poems, each held to be by enthusiastic

believers, the "only genuine" arborial retreat under whose spreading

branches Evangeline is supposed to have sat in saddened meditation over her

absent and elusive lover.  Weight of authority, however, fixes the one at

St. Martinville as THE Evangeline Oak."



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Frances (Ball) Turner

Vancouver, WA



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