The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-08-10
The American Poet and Indian
Missionary.
The Condition and Wrongs of the
ChahtaS.
Their Manners and Customs.

Of Louisiana, and only Caucasian blood flows
in his veins. In early youth, he loved to
roam in the pine forests and the magnolia
groves which stretch from the edge of Lake
Pontchartrain far away into what are called the
Florida parishes of Louisiana, and the Gulf
counties of Mississippi
The happy home in which his boyhood was
spent was near the pellucid and deep stream
called Buchuwa by the Choctaw tribe, once
powerful and dominant in Louisiana and the
adjoining States, and of which few small and
miserably wretched specimens still linger
on the lake shore, and are occasionally to be
seen on the streets and about the French
Market of New Orleans. The Choctaws-or
rather Ctohtas, for this is the name by which
they call themselves-were far more numer-
GUS, and comparatively better off than they
now are when the dreamy and enthusiastic
young Creole first came in contact with them at
his favorite country home in Bayou Lacombe.
Game was abundant, and the kindly rela-
tons which then existed between the Indians
and the Franco American settlers on the lake
ouOAO OApOAou GAOaA4 w PAOSuAO dA eAO AOSOo-
saries and even few of the Injuries of life
in exchange for the deer, the wild turkeys
and the other spoils Of the chase, as we'll
as for the wild herbs and roots, the sassafras
powder or gonabo and the bamboo baskets,
sarbacanes (cane blow-guns), feather orna-
ments and other articles of their own manu-
facture. Whenever they wanted to trade they
focked to the villages Of Vaudeville, Madi-
sonville, or Bay St. Louis, or even crossed
over to New Orleans, where we recollect to
have seen them in our youthful days calling
in squads of three or four at every house with
their wares-the men in their picturesque
hunting costume, and the squaws carrying
sometimes two and three little Indians in the
huge basket swung across their shoulders.
At the houses of the dwellers on the lake
shore they were always Hospitality received,
sometimes camping for weeks near the fami-
ly mansion of their "comrade," as they
sffsctionately called their nearest pale-faced
neighbor and friend.
With such surroundings, it is not to be
wondered at that Chahta-Im should
have acquired great fondness for
these children of the forest. with whom he
often went on hunting expeditions, and with
whose language and character he soon became
thoroughly familiar. Having been sent by
his parents to Pennsylvania University in
Kentucky, and afterwards to Philadelphia he
returned to New Orleans, which he left
shortly after for France, where he took his
degrees at the Royal College of Nantes. He
then spent few years in Paris, and although
fully approaching the attractions of that gay
capital, and deeply interested in the brilliant
literary revival which, under the name of
"romantisme" had just reached its highest
development under the auspices of Lamar
tine, Hugo, De Vigny De Musset and other
gifted poets, and even exhibiting in his own
compositions some refexion of their newborn
inspiration, his soul and his heart constantly
yearned for that Lake Shore, on whose shelly
beach his feet had SO often wandered, and for
the deep glades, the magnolia scented groves
grateful shadows he had followed the track of
the wild deer in company with the scarcely
less wild children of the forest.
The result of this state of mind was the
publication, in 1S41, of a volume of French
lyrical poems entitled "Les Savanes," a collec.
ton " hich, if not altogether free from the er-
rors and imperfections of first essays, is never
theless distinguished by elegant diction and
q profound feeling of the beauties and the
e ~
of his birth. This work was we'll received in
France, and elected favorable notices from
several distinguished poets of the day, who
the author, sbove all, upon
the wild, yet graceful melody Of his verses,
and the '.peyume Of the Goods emanating
therefrom.
Returning to Louisiana after long alb
sence, our young poet revisited the scenes of
his boyhood. and taking up his "blanket and
his rifle, resumed his former life in the
desert as if lie had never wandered in a
strange country beyond the Great Foamipg
Waters; and after many year of wild
and perilous delights in the
woods" he returned home to astonish his
friends by the announcement that he had
made up his mind to give up the pleasures
and the vanities of. this world, and to devote
himself entirely to the service of God.
In 1916 he was admitted to the order of
priesthood in the Catholic Church, since
which time his life has been equally divided
between the performance of his sacred duties
the composition of religious poems in the
French and English languages (among which
We may note "Wild Flowers" published in
lS4S. and "LAutoniade," in 1S60), and last
but not least, to the cherished dream of his
life, the conversion of his Indian friends to
and the improvement Of their
mental and material condition.
Periodically visiting them at their various
camping grounds, preaching to them in their
own language and with the same native force
Of imagery, which is characteristic of abort |
sinal eloquence, he soon had the satisfaction
IF gathering a daily increasing number of
Chahtas into the folds of the church, and of |
in every way to their moral and |
physical wants. SO we'll beloved is he by them |
hat they have gwen to him the name of
''Chahta-Ima," or ''Choctaw-hke," to imply |
hat they look upon him as one of them |
'elves-as dear and venerated Chief. ''Cha-
ah. lima" thus became the Indian surname of
,ur respected fellow-citizen, the Reverend |
Father Adrien r ouquette from whose lips we /