Customer Reviews

Mardi Gras, Gumbo, and Zydeco: Readings in Louisiana Culture

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"Mardi Gras, Gumbo, and Zydeco: Readings in Louisiana Culture" is a wonderful collection of essays that focus on the southern half of my colorful home state of Louisiana. Editors Marcia Gaudet and James C. McDonald have compiled thirteen articles that cover topics ranging from those listed in the book's title to crawfish and Catholicism.

The book opens with an introduction to Louisiana's culture and how it is defined by two distinct regions: a predominantly Anglo Protestant north and a predominantly French Catholic south. It also gives a brief introduction to the essays that await the reader, including a warning that Michael P. Smith's article on the influence of Buffalo Bill's Show on the New Orleans Mardis Gras Indians is rather controversial.

From here, the reader gets a good look at topics as serious as the fight for recognition of the United Houma Nation to unique Mardi Gras traditions in places like Choupique to lighter fare such as anti-clerical humor that will definitely draw laughter from the reader.

Personal favorites are the aforementioned essay on anti-clerical humor from Barry Jean Ancelet, C. Paige Gutierrez' look at the crawfish as a symbol of the Cajuns, Patricia K. Rickels' very interesting study of "witch riding" and Marcia Gaudet's essay on the Cajun saint, Charlene Richard.

Granted, this book's articles might sound a bit dated to some, but that makes them no less important than articles written within the last few years. Much like Louisiana, these articles are unique, sometimes funny but always very interesting. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Louisiana, particularly the southern part of the state, Mardi Gras, folk studies, and cultural traditions.

Highly recommended.

This work, published in 2003, offers many viewpoints on South Louisiana culture, and all but one of the articles are very good to excellent. The painful exception is Michael P. Smith's "Buffalo Bill and The Mardi Gras Indians." How this got published in a peer-reviewed journal (Cultural Vistas) let alone this anthology is very puzzling. This article depends on a great deal of speculation. Phrases like "must have", "were surely" "were likely" and "I suspect" are rampant. There is no hypothesis testing here, just guesses based on parallel events. Smith commits two howling faux paux; first, referring to the Indian tribes as gangs. Then he compounds this by referring to current Creoles (Louisianans of mixed black, white, and latin heritage) as the "Maroons of Urban New Orleans". I can only conclude that he read maroon in an old work and thought it was still current, or, more likely, that his informants set out to pull his leg by filling his head full of "gangs" and "maroons". I hope Mr. Smith never addresses a Creole New Orleanian as a maroon! Reflexive political correctness is also on display. Unlike some of the other entries, there are no references.

Some of the articles were solid but a little dated in 2003, such as "Every Man a King" by Caro and Ireland, but overall (despite the Smith entry) the book is an excellent cultural panorama of pre-Katrina South Louisiana.