InfoAnda - Oil threatens French-speaking Cajuns, native Choctaw

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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Asia Pacific World Oil threatens French-speaking Cajuns, native Choctaw AFP - Friday, May 21 Send IM Story Print A sign in French and English is seen on May 18 in Isle Jean de Charles, Louisiana. MONTEGUT, Louisiana (AFP) - – The encroaching Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have sounded the death knell for the vanishing cultures of the last French-speaking Cajun communities and Louisiana native Americans. Here in the deep Louisiana south, the Cajun people and the French-speaking Choctaw Indians can do nothing but maintain an anxious vigil, angrily accusing US authorities of abandoning them to their fate. Since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig unleashed a huge oil leak in the Gulf, no barriers have been erected to protect their home on a speck of land off the Louisiana coast called Isle de Jean Charles. For two weeks, Clifton Hendon has been unable to go out to sea to harvest the oyster beds -- his only source of income. Fishing has been banned in the area in the wake of the deepsea oil spill that British energy giant BP is still struggling to contain, nearly a month after the rig it leased from Transocean sank. "I've lost hundreds of dollars," sighed the 63-year-old oysterman, one of the 80 or so last remaining French Indians, as they call themselves, living on Isle de Jean Charles. His small, flat-bottomed boat lay idle, moored on the canal alongside the mobile home where he has lived since Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house in 2005. US officials have promised him a new home. But so far nothing. "They have abandoned us," he said with an air of resignation. Used to being overlooked, the Choctaw Indians were not surprised that military engineers sent to the region after the disaster have refused to erect barriers between the bayous and the sea as they have done further up the coast. If the huge oil slick arrives here as predicted, nothing will stop it from washing up on Isle de Jean Charles, on the southern tip of Lousiana's vanishing wetlands. "They told us that this island has nothing of value worth saving," said the island's historian, Christophe Brunet. Tribal chief Albert Naquin confirmed his concerns, saying: "They forgot us because we are a small community and because we are an Indian community." Instead, authorities have offered to relocate them on firmer land with the rest of the tribe of some 700 people, after hurricanes and the increasing salinization of the bayou have already caused many to leave. But in fleeing this narrow strip of land that has fallen victim to coastal erosion and storms for years, the Choctaw know they are abandoning their traditions and the language of Moliere spoken here for over 300 years. These are the descendants of mixed couples who came together in the 18th and 19th centuries, when French settlers intermarried with Indian women. "Their culture has already been vanishing, because so many of the younger people aren't getting into fishing and to shrimping the way their parents did because it's just not quite lucrative," said filmmaker Rebecca Ferris, who is making a documentary about the island. "Isle de Jean Charles is already in a paralyzed place because the wetlands are all disappearing and there is, I think, great risks that this area is gonna to go underwater," she added. "It could be in August or in 30 years, but if the oil gets in to the wetlands around here, I think it would just accelerate the loss." Bar owner Theo Chaisson agreed, as he emptied out trout he is still allowed to fish. "If it gets here, it will harm our community," he warned. The Louisiana Indians and the Cajuns are the last French-speaking communities in the United States. But for decades, French has been losing ground. In 2000, only about 200,000 Louisianans spoke French at home -- 50,000 less than 10 years earlier. "I think Isle de Jean Charles, of all (Indian) communities, is probably gonna be the first one to go," said Ferris. "We're French Indians," chief Naquin said proudly. "When I started the school, I couldn't speak English. "I use the French language just when I'm in the island. Basically our culture is the same than the Cajun." The oil spill risks speeding up the death of the French language here, said singer Zachary Richard, who has fought for the survival of Francophone Louisiana. If the shrimpers are forced to shut down, that will spell the end of French in the bayous. "The shrimpers are the last bastions of the French language because French is passed on on the boats. The young boys learn to fish using a French vocabulary," Richard said. "We will see French disappear along a certain part of the Louisiana coast." Filmmaker Glen Pitre, dubbed the father of Cajun cinema, predicted that for this unique place in America's deep south, the gathering oil slick forming off the coast "could be the last nail in the coffin." 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