Edited by Marcia Gaudet Lafayette Natural History Museum and Planetarium Lafayette, Louisiana 1986 Emile Stouff, Chief of the Chitimachas Chitimacha Chief Benjamin Paul and the Chitimacha children are pictured with a pirogue near the Chitimacha reservation in Charenton. The little girl is Jane Bernard Wilson, the boy in the center is Arthur Darden, and the boy sitting in the pirogue is Gabriel Darden. (M.R. Harrington, 1908. Photo courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation)...

The Regis Darden Chitimacha family. Pictured from left to right are Lucy Mora Darden, Delphine Stouff (in back), Adelle Darden, Gaston Darden, Regis Darden (in back), and Stacy Darden. Adelle Darden, wife of Regis Darden, was known as “Gum DaDa.” Lucy Mora Darden was the wife of Gaston Darden. Chitimacha baskets are pictured in front of the group. Basket weaving is a traditional craft of the Chitimacha Indians. (M.R. Harrington, 1908. Photo courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundat

Emile Stouff was Chief of the Chitimachas of Charenton, Louisiana, from 1948 to 1968. After Chief Stouff died in 1978, his widow, Faye Roger Stouff, discovered two notebooks in which he had recorded some of the things about the Chitimachas that he had learned from oral tradition. The two manuscripts were written in Emile Stouff’s handwriting. Though Chief Stouff had no formal education, Mrs. Stouff, who is not a Native American, taught him to read and write after they were married and she came t

In the beginning, the Great Spirit looked at a great mass of water. So he said, “There should be something solid for animals with blood.” So he called upon the crawfish to dig down and bring up some dirt, which they did. As they brought up the dirt, the water receded. The crawfish is still working at it. The Great Spirit was pleased. So he took the dirt and made all living things with it. When he ran out of objects, he said, “This is good, but I must make one to control these animals. I will mak

I will try to write here what I know of the Chitimacha Indians as I know it and what I heard from the old people. The tribe once lived on Grand Lake from Bayou Portage, as that is where the Sacred tree now stands, to the shell beach here in Charenton. That is where they were living when one day a large boat came up from where the sun rises. It stopped out in the lake a distance from shore. The Indians were amazed at its size and stood on shore looking when some men came ashore to see about comin

Hoover, Herbert T. The Chitimacha People. Phoenix: Indian Tribal Series, 1975. Kniffen, Fred. The Indians of Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Bureau of Educational Materials, Statistics and Research, College of Education, Louisiana State University, 1965. Orso, Ethelyn and E. Charles Plaisance. “Chitimacha Folklore,” Louisiana Folklore Miscellany , vol. III, no. 4 (1975 for 1973), pp. 35-41. Stouff, Faye. The Chetimachas of Charenton. Booklet published by Lafayette Natural History Museum, 1974.