Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana

The Chitimacha stayed. Every other indigenous people in Louisiana was removed, relocated, dispersed. The Chitimacha remained on land their ancestors occupied for at least 1,300 years — the reservation at Charenton in St. Mary Parish is not a resettlement but an unbroken claim. Acadiana's story is one of displacement survived — the Acadian refugees expelled from Canada in the 18th century, the people who became Cajuns by staying when the country around them changed hands. The Chitimacha's continuity predates all of it. They were here when the French arrived. They were here when the British won. They were here when the Acadians came. They are here now. Federally recognized since 1916, the tribe has spent the last century engaged in acts of recovery. The Chitimacha language nearly went extinct before recorders captured it in the early 20th century. The tribe now maintains a language revitalization program — recovery and transmission, a language brought back from near silence. The baskets tell the other part of the story. Chitimacha weavers use river cane and a double-weave technique to produce what are considered among the finest Native American baskets in North America. The technique is specific, material, old. River cane. Double weave. Hands that learned from hands. The Cypress Bayou Casino and Cultural Center operates on the reservation. The tribe's survival is not retrospective. It is present tense, self-determined, earning its own terms. Go to understand what it means to never leave.