News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-04-01
MEN WHO LIVE ON Stills
A MALAY VILLAGE OF LAKE Dwell
LERS IN LOUISIANA.

LERS IN LOUISIANA.
Living i'm Houses Built upon Spiles
Above the Water-A Village
without Women.
From prehistoric days people living
ferred to place their dwellings in con-
on the marshy borders of lakes have pre-
venient positions for their boats, and
have used spiles, driven into the edges
of the lakes, for the foundations of their
dwellings, which were at once houses
and wharves.. On the banks of Lake
Maracaibo, in Venezuela, are several of
these villages, and they are to be found
in obscure places in Asia and on the west
coast of Africa.
Taking the Shell Beach cars from New
Orleans and passing through a fair and
fertile country, up the ancient battlefield
where Jackson won his laurels,
whose long line of Notifications
repaired by the Confederates may still
be seen, you reach in an hour the shores
of Lake Borgne There is fine new
club house here, owned by the Hunting
and Fishing club, containing sleeping
rooms enough to accommodate half the
club at once. From the observatory of
the club house can be seen with a strong
glass what looks like o cluster of low
huts away on the distant curve of the
lake shore. This is the Afa4ay village Of
lake dwellers.
There is an hotel here, too, kept by an
old Spanish Creole and his wife, a shy,
slender, brown girl with bare feet and a
calico sun bonnet of immeasurable depth
of tunnel, and dim obscurity down in
its depths in which her big dark eyes look
soft and shadowy. They keep pet alli-
gator about the place, tied to a stake,
and inclined to be extremely open with
strangers who pat him on the head and
5VFistte 10 him, lie rolls one. wicked
small eye, lifts hls upper I'D and shuts 1t
again with a bang that is unpleasantly
emphatic. There is a solitary pelican,
too, with clipped wings and an ex-
tremely reserved disposition, whose bill
the hotel keeper, with an eye to decora-
ton and exquisite Iberian taste, has
out from the hotel, hundred yards into
the lake, where a boat may be hired to
go anywhere, even to the Malay village,
though the little French boatman warns
you they, the Malays, are not sociable,
and are lamentably careless in the use of
the knife.
The village is an hours sail across the
curve of the lake, and there, in the
brown, oozy marsh, away from any hu-
man habitation, with only the fat, dim,
horizon in sight, is this primoval phase
of civilization. A sleepy, crawling bayou
runs through the village, and the water
marks on piles tell how high the tide
rises at certain seasons, so that they are
surrounded entirely by water in the
spring. Just below a little coarse grass
pricks through the Shiny earth, leprous
with salt residuum from the tides and
swarms of fierce, bloodthirsty mosqui-
toes rise in clouds as feet wading through
the mud disturb them. There are eight
houses here, built up on piles ten feet
high, and made of hewn timbers roughly
put together and admitting air and light
everywhere through the crevices. They
are oblong squares divided into three
rooms, with baton shutters hung on
leather hinges, and no door to any door
way, except the one that leads to the
rude, unroofed gallery. The houses are
mostly thirty feet long by eighteen wide,
and some six or eight men occupy each
one. Almost all of the men are away
fishing at the moment, but an ancient
weather beaten party greets us civllly
enough in Spanish difficult to under
stand. His face is the color of old leather,
and scanned as if cut with knife. There
are two or three others lounging about
with pipes in their mouths, more or less
free translations of the first ancient mar
iner, but not woman to be seen. 1t IS
strictly masculine community. No
woman is allowed within its borders.
There is legend at the Shell Beach
that once, yearning for the sweet ameni-
ties of feminine companionship, one
woman was imported as an experiment.
In less than a week ties of friendship
that had lasted for years were snapped.
na1ght, aud every nigh otsI,nNos 'ASSsvtA-
tuated with knives, arose. The heads of
the community consulted together. 1t
was evident that this dusky Helen was
destined to bring on a warfare like that
of the Kilkenny cats, so it resolved itself
into a question of the first law OF nature.
The whole body, exhausted with dissen-
sion, consenting, the unhappy female was
taken out into the marsh, tied to stake,
and abandoned to the mosquitoes, who
made short work of her. They picked
her bones clean, since which time no
woman has been allowed to set foot with
in the village. But this is only alegend.
The men support themselves by hunt
ING and fishing, and live in a primitive
fashion, ruled over by sort of patriarch,
who settles disputes and governs the
| community in all important matters.
The sole amusement is gambling with
an original sort of card, of which there
are only twenty y-seven in the pack, all OF
| them quite unlike the cards in general
use. This, with q game something like
the cold horse" of children, forms the
occupation of all their idle hours. They
have no religion apparently, and if crime
| is committed among them who knowsF
The waters of the bayou would tell no
tales, and blood might cry aloud from
those vast, lonely marshes and no ear
listen closer than the low, blue skies;
They have but little furniture. The
only touch of high art is displayed IN the
dull brown blanket suspended before the
inner door, They sleep on boards sup
ported on trestles, with no bedclothes
other than blanket, and, above all, no
mosquito netting. There are great
heavy tables of hewn timber, where they
| cat their meals and play tnelr SdIhes' ~
few pots and kettles, and huge earthen
! lars, where their water remains cool ana
fresh, complete the list OF their posses
sions. ,,,
Twenty wears ago or more afew Malays
and Lascar seamen deserted from ther
ships at the New Orleans levee, drlfted
out here, and found the desolate marsh
to their taste. They have gradually ac-
cumulated more Asiatics from time to
time, until they number now something
like fifty men, who live this single
amphiblous life with perfect. content
ment. Dwelling almost all of the time
upon the water and crawling out upon
the Shiny banks to eat and sleep; drop
ping into unknown graves, and as op-
iivious to all the outer world as If In an
other planet. ---NeaO York Sun.