VIRTUAL BOOKS

Introduction to Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife

Introduction to Delta Pieces: Northeast Louisiana Folklife – Susan Roach – Susan Roach

Map: Cultural Micro-Regions of the Delta, Northeast Louisiana

Map: Cultural Micro-Regions of the Delta, Northeast Louisiana – H.F. Pete Gregory

The Louisiana Delta: Land of Rivers

Musings on the Louisiana Delta from a Native Son – H.F. Pete Gregory as told to Dayna Lee
Reflections on the Delta – Delta and the River – H.F. Pete Gregory
Reflections on the Delta – The French Delta – H.F. Pete Gregory
Reflections on the Delta – Places – H.F. Pete Gregory
Reflections on the Delta – An Owl Calls – H.F. Pete Gregory
Cane Brakes, High Water, Drought: The Mississippi Delta – Tom Rankin
Ouachita River Mounds: A Five Millennium Mystery – Lori Tucker
Noms de Bayou: French Place Names in North Louisiana – Kelby Ouchley
The Flood of 1927 and the Great Depression: Two Delta Disasters – Betty Jo Harris

Working in the Delta

Working in the Delta – Susan Roach
Nets and Net Making in the Delta – Sheila Richmond
"Willing to Take A Risk": The Folklore of Cropdusting – Susan Roach and Janet Ryland
Big River Traditions: Folklife on the Mississippi – Ben Sandmel
Delta Folks – Hunter And Fisherman Kenneth Hebert: "Love It More Than Anything" – Sylvia Frantom
Traditional Boats of Catahoula Lake – Dayna Bowker Lee
Reflections on the Delta – Traditional Boats in the Delta – H.F. Pete Gregory
The Rolling Store – John L. Doughty, Jr.
Delta Folks – Judge Alwine Louise Smith Ragland: Louisiana's First Woman Judge – Betty Jo Harris
Delta Folks – Ike Hamilton: From Rodeo Clown to Auctioneer Colonel – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Whitey Shockley: Mississippi River Fisherman – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Oren Russell: Mississippi River Boat Pilot – Susan Roach

Making Music in the Delta

At Play in the Delta, From Memphis to Natchez – Michael Luster
Delta Folks – Thomas Edison "Brownie" Ford: Cowboy, Storyteller, and Ballad Singer – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Po' Henry and Tookie: Delta Blues Duo – Susan Roach
Brownie Ford: Lifelines of a Woods Cowboy – Nicholas R. Spitzer
Since Ol' Gabriel's Time: Hezekiah and the Houserockers Liner Notes – David Evans
Delta Folks – Performer and Songwriter Kenny Bill Stinson: "Mixing Country Music with the Blues" – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Instrument Builder Hilton Lytle: "I've Always Worked with Wood" – Susan Roach
Delta Folks – Vidalia's One-Man Band, Gray Montgomery: "Several Different Musicians Rolled into One."– Ben Sandmel
Delta Folks – Laymon Godwin: Pedal Steel and Dobro Master – Susan Roach

Telling Stories in the Delta

"The Big One": Deer Hunting in Northeast Louisiana – Janery Wylie
The Hub Lake Gold: An Analysis of A Legend – John L. Doughty, Jr.
Landmark of the Koroa – Sam Dickenson

Delta Archival Materials

Delta Archival Materials: An Inventory
Reflections on the Delta

Places

By Hiram Ford "Pete" Gregory, III

Editor's Note: In the early 1990s, Pete Gregory wrote these personal reflections about Northeast Louisiana's Delta and they are published with minimal editing. Also see his Musings on the Louisiana Delta from a Native Son.

 

As one came into the "hills" near Bastrop or along the Macon Ridge, small farms replaced plantations. Similarly, along the backswamps on Black or Boeuf River, small landholders were the rule. People lived on their own "places" there, too. "Places" was the term most often heard and "places" were not named as plantations were. They were referred to by their owner's family name. Usually, they consisted of a house, barn, smokehouse, shed and/or outdoor privy. The "Jones Place" and "Hampton Place" were typical toponyms. In Franklin Parish, these "places" formed a neighborhood, usually consisting of an extended family group. These neighborhoods were usually interconnected by lanes or roads. Some of these were named, but most were not.

Each house place had a "stamp" in the front where cattle and horses once preferred to sleep. Today they are the parking place for pickup trucks. A "place" usually had some acreage—40 to 160 acres. Somehow the acreage was gradually lost until it dwindled down to three to five acres, with only an old couple in their eighties still on the old "home place." Kids and grandchildren came home less and less. When the corporate farms came, the old "places" were bought and sold until the large landholdings completely subsumed them. Not many are left today.

The old men would come back in the summers from Texas. One, polished up and urban, came from "San Antone"; the other, older and still full of country ways, came from Nacogdoches. They were my grandfather's stepbrother's boys, the old man's nephews. We were always glad to see them. They'd come in, stay in the boys' room of our house, normally my room since my stepbrother had gone off to school at the university. I'd visit, paddle the boat when they went fishing, and try to encourage them by telling tales. It usually worked, and at the supper table they'd all begin. The stories were about family and explained why these old people had moved off and abandoned the "home place. " I remember how it was.

Hiram F. "Pete" Gregory is an anthropologist at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Dayna Lee, his former student, served as regional folklorist for northwest Louisiana and now is an independent anthropologist based in New Orleans. This article was written for the Delta Folklife Project as part of Northeast Louisiana's Delta.