The Sunshine Bridge

EE: Welcome to The Sunshine Bridge, a new show which highlights the diverse perspectives of Louisianians and the work of those who serve their community. I’m Elizabeth Eads.
A new Indian mound has been discovered in a subdivision off of Tiger Bend Road where new houses are being constructed. It’s a small mound, but the efforts for its preservation shows a shift in attitude and intention of respect towards Louisiana’s indigenous perspectives. The Coushatta tribe in Louisiana were one of the numerous tribes who were consulted upon the mound’s discovery. I spoke with Raynella Fontenot and Linda Langley who represent the Coushatta about the mound’s preservation and its treatment.

EE: Tell me a little about this mound because today we're talking about the most recent Indian mound that was discovered in The Sanctuary subdivision off of Tiger Bend Road. How did you become involved with it?

LL: We first learned about this from the State Archaeologist, Chip McGimsey, who brought it to our attention. It's always a little bit more complicated situation when the property is owned privately, and in this case, development was planned, and that is always sort of a red flag as well for us. But we have an excellent relationship with the State Archaeologist, and so he's very proactive and reaches out to us, and he brought it to our attention. It's now several years, we were trying to remember, but when the development concept first came up, he brought it to us, and we and other federal tribes began consulting on this right away in terms of how to protect the site, the archaeological site, and the mound itself, and still respect the wishes of the landowner.

EE: How long ago was it that you found out about it?

LL: At least three years, maybe four years.

RF: Three to four years, at least. We were actually able to visit the site. So, a lot of the times, we're invited to go and visit and look around at the site, and the archaeologist will show us around and make sure that everything is done appropriately and respectfully.

EE: How is it that you view the mound? 'Because it's something that's from a culture that may predate yours.

RF: Even if the mound is predating the descendants, we still value them and consider them highly sacred. So, we still give them the respect and appropriate ways of understanding them and protection and just different things in those terms culturally that make it significant not to just our tribe but to all tribes. So that we're here...we're still around so that we can oversee these things and protect what our ancestors have made and built and we just like to continue that.

EE: Okay. How is it that it works with all of the tribes coming together? Do the tribes have to have like a consensus, or how does that work?

LL: So, I am not Coushatta. I am married into the tribe. And I served as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. What I have been the most impressed by in the...I don't even know...the 20 or 30 years since I've been involved in this is the way that the tribes respect each other. And in the Southeast there is a consensus, there's actually a coalition of tribes that meet regularly in the pandemic (of course by Zoom) but usually several times a year in person as well. And the agreement among them is just amazing to see that as Raynella said, these are somebody's ancestors. And it may be difficult to say if they were specifically Coushatta or Choctaw or one of the other Muskogian groups, but they're all cousin tribes, and these are shared ancestors, and if we are closest geographically and can get there more easily than someone, we often will. We'll share knowledge, and there's been an amazing determination to have this kind of consensus to differ to other tribes when it's appropriate or necessary, but to work together to protect these archaeological sites, these historical legacies and the ancestors themselves in the case of actual NAGPRA human remains or associated funerary objects or traditional cultural sites that all the tribes will work together to the best of their ability.
Nobody is served by allowing damage or some kind of...I hate to use the word "desecration". And this is, you know, you see this to me in the sort of non-native world in terms of people's respect for The National Archives or The Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetary. People may come from around the world... that may not be their ancestors that are buried there, but there is a determination to protect and respect and work together. We've really set aside those kind of...I hate to say Western, but those kind of...well, was it...can you make a positive cultural affiliation. Yes, we can. It was ancestors to all the people.

EE: I'm a little bit curious about the relationship with the archaeologists because when I have talked with archaeologists, my understanding is that, well...for such a long time, archaeologists were going in and digging without asking questions, and now that is beginning to change...or at least it has been changing for the past twenty years or so. How do you view the archaeological digs? What makes for a good experience with that?

RF: We've actually come across some changes in the archaeological field. So, I think the mentality is shifting toward reaching out to each indigenous community that it may be linked to. So then, we're on the end of seeing great changes coming. And now that things are shifting, it's been a pleasure to work with some of these archaeologists and the state archaeologist just across the board because their mentality is focused on indigenous perspectives now, so we actually appreciate that, and when they do that, we are glad to step in and give whatever knowledge we can share. There are sometimes that knowledge is not allowable to be shared to outsiders, but when we can share that, it actually opens the eyes of the archaeologists and helps them see things from an indigenous perspective.

EE: Are you able to speak any of the reasons why outsiders aren't allowed to know certain things? I mean, I understand it's private, and I don't want to....

RF: On those private matters, it's usually traditional cultural...either ceremonial ways.... Those types of things are not usually shared with anyone outside of the tribe just generally. We don't really speak of outside of homes a lot of times.

EE: Okay. Okay. What is it that creates the most interest for a tribe in an archaeological dig? Because I was actually talking with another tribe, and I was told that this particular mound wasn't something that really registered.... They saw whatever they saw and they said, " Oh, okay. That's fine." What makes creates interest for you in an archaeological dig?

LL: That question is a little more complicated. I think some of the aspects or some of the elements are areas of interest. So, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana has started a long partnership, as Raynella was talking about, with the public archaeology lab at UL-Lafayette and several other universities. And the Coushattas were always diplomatic people, often moved ahead of conflicts in the region, encroachment by settlers. As a result, their "footprint" for archaeologists or on maps is very limited, and they tend to be left out of the history book or the historical narrative completely. And so, for us, knowing where the Coushatta were(and we have those oral traditions, and we have place names and so on), but it gets us to within 3-5 miles of an actual village site. But we know where those are. And having worked with UL-Lafayette and other archaeologists and explained, shown them maps, shown them the documents. Kind of looking for archaeological types or an assemblage, a certain, you know, a temper of pottery. Then we may be looking at things within where we know the Coushatta were at certain points in time, and other tribes may be aware they weren't anywhere near there, and they have less interest in it. It's not, again, not to beat that point, but it's not so much the Western concept of the "stuff" or even the construction of the mound or something like that. It's the people. What were they doing there? What was important to them? What are the living descendants tasked with protecting? And so, often where the goal of the archaeologist, either because of potential damage or destruction, it may be obviously to excavate. But sometimes it's not that priority for the living descendants. They may have a whole different scope-of-work concept, or they may define a site differently.
We're working on another project, and thankfully the Army Corps of Engineers and other places, even Moundville now, reaching out to tribes. We can define...sometimes the mound or the shell midden is viewed as the site, but we know there were connections between that. Roads or canals or the living spaces themselves may have surrounded, they may have been on that mound that maybe a burial mound, but they may have surrounded that mound. And so, we may look at what other people say, "Well, that isn't even the site." Yes. It is. And we know again from the traditions, from the oral traditions what we were told was happening in a place like that, and so it may be a difference between tribes, between regions, between family groups, or just a particular tribe like ours but has been tasked with a different set of constructs. But it's very much bigger than just - If it's lithics, is that too early? Or - Are you looking in the history? It's a much bigger picture than that.

EE: Yeah, so the mound itself is just part of the whole thing that you're trying to preserve.

LL: Exactly.

EE: You know that's really interesting, and you know, when I went down to the mound.... You know, I saw the Amite River that's just right by there. And it's just funny because whenever I was there, I remember thinking - Oh wow. This was definitely, you know, like a stop. Like, this was definitely, like there were canoes that were coming in and out of here and everything and just thinking about that. How do you preserve something like that when you know that the mound is only part of it, and then you have development going on on both sides of it? Because at this point, there's going to be houses on one side, houses on the other side, and you have this one green space. How do you determine the amount of space that is to be preserved?

LL: That's the big question really. I don't think there's any one answer to that.

RF: Right.

LL: I was actually listening to a podcast with an engineer who was instrumental in designing the interstate highway system. And they asked him, "What was the most difficult part? Was it preserving archaeological sites? Was it mountains, rivers, crossing things, blasting things? He said, "It was avoiding cemeteries." (Laughs) Which you'd never think of, right? So, some things you do expect to be preserved exactly in tact. And others, you know, in the history of the world, civilizations settle where others have often for similar reasons have access.... Sometimes we just know you can't preserve everything. But as much as you can, the site reports, the photographs, the maps.... In this case, with this mound, the green space, the signage, the expectation of respect.
Like you, one of the things I often ask the archaeologists to look for is the age growth of the trees and an estimate of where the canoes would have been put in and taken out of the water. And there's just no way probably to preserve "that" because how can you justify stopping, you know from a private landowner, like - You want me to not build where they put their canoes in the water? But at least we can record things like that and be able to preserve it in some other way. And teach it to the youth and the young people and have some respect for this site. This is almost...you know, it's one of the better ones that we see because it has been proactive from the start in that regard.

EE: Right. Because we have the whole thing with the LSU mounds. I don't know if anyone wants to speak to any of that. Or you know, I would like to provide a space to...because, you know, I was having a conversation with someone about, you know - I think one of the reasons why you know, the rolling down the hills happens or the mounds happens is because no one has said, "Don't do that." You know? Or I don't know if that's okay or not. I still don't know. You know? Um....

LL: Just in the last two years, I mean, we've been consulting probably about the same amount of time as we have been on this site with LSU and the State Archaeologist, and at times that has gone well, but I think there's such a strong non-indigenous perspective and culture of how the mounds are viewed in relation to football and the university and traditions. There's quite a bit of concern among the southeastern tribes. It's been brought up repeatedly. We've actually sent letters to the university and the State Archaeologist and copied everyone, and the most recent ice storm and the sledding down the hills was, you know, very concerning. Because it seems to indicate that the culture of protection and respect is not happening in quite the way or speed that we would like it to. So, I think there are a lot of tribes that are very concerned about the LSU mounds - their age..., you know, there's so much that needs to be protected there. They are clearly unique. I can't really say enough about how much need there is for that culture to change. Recently we did have a phone call with someone in a position to really begin to enact some of that change. I'm hopeful that LSU is maybe starting to look at this differently. If we could even get them to where the Tiger Bend situation is, I think we would breathe a lot easier.

EE: Okay. So you think the Tiger Bend situation is a much better situation.

LL: I do.

EE: And I guess tell me why it's a better situation.

RF: Comparing it to the LSU mounds, there's a lot of room for improvement as far as education and advocacy. We would like for all the tribes to be heard. I think with the Tiger Bend mound, they actually did proactively reach out to all the tribes that had interest in that section of Louisiana. And I know that LSU has a large tradition with gaming and football, so I feel that we could still reach those people and educate them as well, but we just haven't gotten to that point yet.

EE: Speaking about the mound at Tiger Bend, how would you like it to be treated? Because, again, it's a small mound. You know, is it okay to walk on it at all? Is okay to picnic there?
Because it's also a green space, so you know, where do you consider the boundaries to be for that?

RF: We were always taught growing up that it is more or less forbidden to walk on the mound because you don't really know what would be under the earth there. The mound's put there for a reason, and the reason may be unknown, but we would be respectful and not disrespect that space by walking on them.

EE: Thank you ladies so much.

RF: Thank you.

LL: You're welcome. You know they don't say goodbye, so we'll say "Atokloma" - Until next time.

EE: Awesome. Atokloma (Laughs) Awesome. Atokloma.

RF: (Laughs) That's great.

EE: This is The Sunshine Bridge - a new show which highlights the diverse perspectives of those in the Louisiana area and the work of those who serve their community. It would be great to hear from you. You can email the show at thesunshinebridge@gmail.com. Special thanks to Chip McGimsey, Malcolm Shuman, and Pat Arnould for sharing their knowledge of the topic with me. Also thanks and special dedication of this show to Scott, whose friendship and support helped to make this show and interview a reality. The music you are hearing is by Arnav Srivastav. I’m Elizabeth Eads. Keep shining.