Saints and Traiteurs

The most common image one conjures up of Southwest Louisiana is a plantation laden, majestic oak-covered, Spanish moss landscape tossed about by humid Gulf breezes. But, what is most remarkable about the place is the invisible and imagined, as you visit with its people and walk about its cemeteries. During a trip back home several years ago, I asked to see where my mother’s parents, J’Mama and J’Papa had been laid to rest. Mom and Dad drove my sister and me to the community of Richard, near Church Point. Their homestead, long ago demolished, lay near a locale called Point Noir. On the front row of their graveyard in Richard, near St. Edward’s Church where all are buried above ground, is a prominent white marble crypt of Charlene Marie Richard. Charlene, dubbed the “Little Cajun Saint,” died of leukemia at the age of 12. During her arduous treatment, she never complained and prayed for the priest and staff who tended her care until she died. Non-believers who were placed in the room where she expired, converted to Catholicism and many who visit her gravesite are miraculously cured of their afflictions. At the foot of her grave is a glass box whose top opens easily for visitors to place a small personal memento so that they too can become the recipient of an interceding miracle. While my mother kneels to pray at Charlene’s grave, my sister and I scramble to find something personal to leave in the glass miracle box. No one wants to be left out of the promise of a miracle.

As we dig through our purses, my mother scoffs at our gesture. “I go directly to God, now,” she states flatly. “Charlene refused to help Anthony (my brother) when he was dying of pancreatic cancer.” My sister ignores her and leaves a metal angel she carries in a neatly organized purse. While my purse holds an entire world of personal papers, cards, coins, and possibly angels, it always throws up the detritus of a life in disarray. I have two settle for two of my favorite aspirin, the bright orange, Maalox-covered ones. This is the ‘personal item’ I leave for Charlene work with. I assume my sister asks for a man; my guess is that I’m going to get stuck with relief from headaches, but I hope instead for some revelation about my grandparents. I dare not tempt faith by asking for some real miracle. It seems to have soured my mother on Charlene. After the requisite litany of prayers at Charlene’s grave, we amble around the big white graves looking for the ones holding J’Mama and J’Papa. I nearly laugh out loud as I finally see them side by side with their last name spelled differently. My mother explains that wherever the literacy rate of the faithful is low, the priests fill out the paperwork and spell names they way they choose. It does not seem remarkable to my mother that the priest in this parish chose to spell the names of people married to each other for life as “Olivia Jeanise” and “Alus Jeannies.” Mother always thought her name was spelled “Jeannis.”

The trip to my grandparents’ graves reminded me that the treatment arsenal for ailing bodies and spirits in Louisiana goes beyond what we think of as real medicine. Traiteurs are still abundant and dispense, often at no charge to the suffering, a combination of first aid, herbal remedies, Catholic prayers, somatic hand movements, voodoo, and white magic. As a child, Mother suffered from frequent ear aches and the traiteur was summoned to my grandparents’ home for treatments with herbs, garlic, chanting, and hand movements.

My own experience with a traiteur was remarkable. Out of curiosity about the trade during this same visit, I asked Mother for a referral (they aren’t listed in the local Yellow Pages). She came up with Helen Higginbotham about whom my mother had only heard but didn’t know. “I don’t even know if she’s for real” Mom said. But, I called her anyway, skeptical that her name wasn’t French nor did she sound African American on the phone. I drove to the outskirts of Lafayette where much of the large machinery and oil drilling equipment is sold and stored. My expectations for an authentic experience now reduced immensely. Several small trailers lined a short street where Mrs. Higginbotham was waiting outside her little white frame house with an overfed Basset Hound dragging its belly around the yard. I was startled to see this heavy set weathered 70-ish woman who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t connect her to any time or place. As I followed her and entered the back door of her trailer, the stench of oily dog overcame me and I asked myself if I could spend more than five minutes here.

My first attempt to find a place to sit was foiled. “The sofa belongs to Minnie,” she said so quietly I didn’t connect the name to the dog. The only chair I was allowed was near the window. Not knowing what else to say when I called for a treatment, I told Mrs. Higginbotham I had a headache and that my aspirin was lying on the grave of Charlene. As I sat, Helen began to assess my condition. “Do you have a lot of stress in your job?” she questioned. “No, but I have lots of allergies,” I said concealing that dust and animal dander are my primary triggers. “Well, then I have work to do,” and her face took on a more serious look. I tried to read the room for the herbs and talisman of the traiteur. But she used no accessories of any kind. Rather, she began to speak soft prayers in French as she moved her hands rhythmically across the top of my head and down my neck and back. After three cycles, she smiled and proclaimed them, “gone.” She had such a sweet and inviting countenance that I forgot the reeking animal odor and found the courage to ask for more information. “When did you start treating people?” “I’ve always had the gift,” she said with a startled look as though most everyone should know this. “But” she continued, “I received real training when my three year old son almost died from asthma. An old black man named Michael Thomas had treated me as a young girl with asthma by cutting a lock of my hair and burying it in the hole of a tree in his yard. Years later, I brought my son to him, and he taught me how to use my gift on my son.” She then announced to me that I would need three treatments. When I told her I was headed home for Dallas the next day, she studied my face and said, “well, I’ll just have to put three treatments together for you now.”

She began another cycle of prayers and rhythmic movements, this time asking me the questions. “Who is the family you are visiting here?” Their names meant nothing to her, so she pressed on by asking where they were born. “My mother was raised in Church Point,” I began. “What was her maiden name? I was raised in Church Point,” she interrupted. I went into a chronicle of the Jeannis family and began to see surprise in her eyes. “I’m a Jeannis from Church Point,” she stated with more excitement now. “I’m really from Pont Noir. All of the Jeannis’ around Point Noir are related.” She began the story of the family. Her great grandfather fought in a battle in France and was on the losing side. After that, he moved to Nova Scotia and was thrown out of the Canadian province because of his Catholic beliefs. They moved to New Orleans, but quickly set out in flat boats through the bayous landing near Point Eglise, or Church Point. They burned old persimmon trees to clear an area for houses on land they claimed and named it Point Noir for it’s charred appearance. My Mother and Helen are cousins.

By now, the hair on my arms is standing up and I can’t take in any more information. I can’t decide if the smell of dog is finally getting to me or I am stunned by all of the coincidences. I drive to my parents home and tell them about Helen. Mother immediately remembered Helen’s father as Lovensti “Beebe” Jeannis, the Church Point Justice of the Peace. She laughed as she recalled an ‘accident’ that Beebe had one night when he searched outside for suspected intruders. “As he crept around outside in his long johns, shotgun in hand ready to fire, Beebe’s dog sniffed at his ass, as dogs like to do,” Mother is now laughing and unable to go on with her story. “His shotgun went off and poor old Beebe crapped in his long johns.” How this story made it around Point Eglise, I’ll never know. But, this I do know, Cajuns will tell anything on themselves and others if they know it will entertain a crowd.

As we sat in rocking Lazy-Boys that afternoon, I wasn’t thinking about how old Beebe soiled himself that night or about any of the other Church Point characters of renown my parents recalled that day. I was musing, and still do, about how my family shapes their existence. How their beliefs and customs form them and create a colorful lifestyle where storytelling, traiteurs, the Catholic Church, food and wine co-exist in a savory mélange. Where my mother hedges her bets by consulting card readers, but asks God for forgiveness for all of her transgressions and prays for healings, both of the body and spirit.

The next day I left on a small airplane for Dallas. The combination of dry air and altitude usually gives me a headache. It didn’t escape my notice that I didn’t have one. But, my mind still throbs to contemplate the coincidence that Steve, my husband, has a mother with the maiden name, “Beebe.”