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A Native American Tribe Struggles To Hold On To Their Culture In A Louisiana Bayou While Their Land Slips Into The Gulf Of Mexico. 28 CURRENT FALL 2017
Feature A SHOT RINGS OUT across what remains of Isle de Jean Charles as the sun drops behind the gnarled skeletons of what once were massive oak trees. Rifle in hand, Howard Brunet, 14, stands on the deck of his uncle’s stilted house looking down at the rabbit he shot on the far edge of the property. His sister Juliette, 13, leaps down the stairs to retrieve the body — since neither of the boys will touch it. Next comes rabbit stew. It’s a normal evening at the Brunet household. The kids are tough. The water forces them to be. “We have to be careful with the .22; we need those shells for food,” their uncle, Chris Brunet, who is raising Juliette and Howard, said as the siblings set out empty laundry-detergent containers for target practice with their cousin Reggie Parfait, 13, who lives down the road. “At one time, water was our life and now it’s almost our enemy because it is driving us out, but it still gives us life” Since 1955, the Isle de Jean Charles band of the Biloxi- Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe has lost 98 percent of its land to the encroaching Gulf waters. Of the 22,400-acre island that stood at that time, only a 320-acre strip remains. The tribe’s identity, food, and culture have slowly eroded with the land. In response, on January 21, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the tribe $48 million to relocate through the National Disaster Resilience Competition. But moving isn’t a simple solution. “We don’t have time,” tribal chief Albert Naquin, who spent the last 15 years advocating to relocate his people, said. “The longer we wait, the more hurricane season we have to go through. We hate to let the island go, but we have to. It is like losing a family member. We know we are going to lose it. We just don’t know when.” The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaws are receiving funding, but the fight to save their culture is not over. The federal FALL 2017 CURRENT 29
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