She will demonstrate her skills at making baskets and beadwork and perhaps the traditional moss dolls. The Houmas, the largest Indian tribe in Louisiana with approximately 5000 members, live on the bayous in the marshes of the Louisiana coast, primarily Terrebonne, Lafourche, Plaquemines, and Jefferson parishes. Most speak French and maintain traditional lifestyles based on hunting, fishing, and trapping. In the past, these structures served as homes. Today they continue to be built, but as trappers' temporary shelter or outbuildings.
Palmetto is lashed onto the frame of saplings making a relatively water tight shelter.
Palmetto, a pyrophitic or fire loving plant, is abundant in the marshes and swamps of Louisiana which was regularly burned in the past to increase soil fertility. They will demonstrate the toys and games of their childhood. Medria Nolley Monroe, Ouachita Parish Hair Braiding African American Medria Nolley of Nolley's Salon 913 grew up in Monroe and says no one really taught her to braid. It was in the community and she took it up. Today, her skills at creating cornrows, individual braids, and other styles in Black hair have made her one of those most sought after hair specialists in Monroe.