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

Ethnic Groups

Reflections on the Delta – The Delta is an Indian Place – H.F. Pete Gregory

Reflections on the Delta – Indian Mounds – H.F. Pete Gregory

Choctaw Heritage of Louisiana and Mississippi – Deborah Boykin

The Invisible Population: Mexicans and Central Americans in Northern and Central Louisiana – Lisa Abney

Italians in the Delta: "Pioneers of Monroe" – April Honaker

Delta Folks – Sausage Maker M. J. Varino – Stephanie Pierrotti with Susan Roach

The St. Joseph's Day Altar Tradition In Monroe – Stephanie Pierrotti and Madelyn Boudreaux

Delta Folks – Guy Serio: "They Had a Rough Go": Italians in the Delta – Madelyn Boudreaux

Delta Folks – Qin Lin: Chinese Paper Crafts – Susan Roach

Jewish Folklore in Northeastern Louisiana – Ben Sandmel

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

Homemaking in the Delta

Making a Home in the Delta: Women and the Domestic Environment – Deborah Boykin

Delta Folks – Jelly Maker Maye Torrey: "Berries In The Winter" – Sylvia Frantom

Delta Folks –Hazel Dailey: "To Make Something Each Day That I Am Here" – Sylvia Frantom

Delta Folks – Helen Lyke: Passing On Family Traditions From Needlework To Stories – Sylvia Frantom

Delta Folks – Folk Medicine Remedies Of Virginia Roberts: "For Tummy Aches" – Sylvia Frantom

Reflections on the Delta – Christmas Customs – H.F. Pete Gregory

The Fabric of Family: Preserving the Parker Family's Quilting Heritage – Kerry Davis

Worshiping in the Delta

"Like a River Flowing with Living Water": Worshiping in the Mississippi Delta – Joyce Marie Jackson

Delta Folks – Penola Caesar: Maintaining Old Gospel Singing Traditions – Susan Roach

Sacred Music in the Delta: From Shaped Note to Quartet Singing – Susan Roach

"Take Me to the Water": African American River Baptism – Annie Staten and Susan Roach

Delta Folks – Lucille Stewart: Making Baptismal Gowns – Susan Roach

"Everyone Rockin' Together": Continuity and Creativity in the Louisiana Delta Easter Rock – Susan Roach

Asserting Tradition: The Building and Maintenance of African-American Baptist Rock Ceremony in Northeast Louisiana – Janet L. Sturman

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

Playing in the Delta

Reflections on the Delta – Hunting and Fishing: Delta Life– H.F. Pete Gregory

Reflections on the Delta – Gigging – H.F. Pete Gregory

Delta Folks – "Horns and Dogs Just Go Together": James LeCroix's Revival of the Hunting Horn Making – Marcy Frantom

Delta Folks – Moses Poole on Pen Hunting in Catahoula Parish: "You've Got to Know Your Dog's Mouth" – Marcy Frantom

Delta Folks – Blowing Horn Maker Nalda Gilmore: "The Horn Man" – Sylvia Frantom

Gambling Money Don't Have No Home: Playing Poker and Shooting Dice in the Louisiana Delta – Don W. Hatley

Reflections on the Delta – Night Clubs in the Delta – H.F. Pete Gregory

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

Bibliography

Selected Bibliography on Northeast Louisiana's Delta

Gigging

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.

Gar hide, Catahoula Lake, 1981. Photo: Pete Gregory.

One of the tools associated with the back swamps of the Delta was the "gig" or the harpoon. Gigs came in a variety of forms and were classified as those used for fish and those used for bullfrogs. Older harpoons were made from the "neck" on long-handled or "goose-neck" hoes. Local blacksmiths forged a point with a barb, or as local folks put it, a "beard." Some of these were toggle barbs which folded shut as the projectile entered its target and pulled open as the fish struggled to free itself.

Frog gigs were usually three-tined or four-tined like a fork, with vicious stationary barbs. Unlike the fishing harpoons, frog gigs were "store-bought." The gig pole for the fishing gig was tied to the point, but bounced free on impact. The fish then had to pull against the floating pole, some five to six feet in length.

Gigs were used in sloughs or backwater situations especially for taking buffalo fish, carp or gar. The gigger would wade into the water or stand in his boat and wait for the fish to swim past. Once the fish's head was behind the harpooner, he'd turn and throw so the fish would not be frightened or warned by the motion. Some waders threw with an underhand technique. Both techniques were very effective. One gigger remembered harpooning over 100 buffalo fish one spring. The giggers watched for "bubblers," bubbles made by schools of buffalo fish. At times when the fish move into the backswamp to spawn, the water will look like froth and one can track the fish by the bubbles.

Some of the buffalo weighed up to 20 to 30 pounds; and alligator garfish might be five to six feet in length and weigh at least 20 pounds. The harpooner might find he had his work cut out for him. Getting the harpoon set was only part of the task: retrieving the fish could be a really tough job. Buffalo scales big enough to "cover a silver dollar" were sometimes nailed to bar or shed doors to assuage non-believers.

The Casse-burgo (shell breaker), later corrupted to gaspergou, is the freshwater drum fish. The otoliths, calcareous concretions in the inner ear of the "gou fish," were carried for good luck. These "gou rocks" are formed in the fish's head and have a seven-shaped groove, hence their association with good luck.

Garfish are harder to find, but as the sloughs drain and dry in the late summer/early autumn, they can be taken very easily in shallows. Small fish like bass, sac-au-lait or white perch, and bream take refuge in alligator den holes or other deep spots. The gar will often die when the shallows dry up, so harpooning in the flood times was the efficient way to fish for gar. The Indians used large gar scales as arrow-points, as did little boys in the Delta later on. Indian antler harpoons with stationary barbs were frequent finds on Delta Indian sites. Their iron counterparts were likely used the same way.

Gigging is outlawed today. It was too efficient a way to fish. Frogs are taken with spring-operated "garbs," a more efficient tool, and fewer are lost and wasted. Louisiana now sets a legal season for taking frogs. The frog gigs are still sold in hardware stores, but are not legal.

As drainage and levee projects limit the extent of backwater swamps, the habitat changes; and even before gigging was declared illegal, the harpoons were most often left hanging in the cobwebs of barns and sheds across the Delta. Few have been preserved.

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Louisiana Folklife Program, PO Box 44247, Baton Rouge, LA 70804, tel 225-342-8180

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