The Handfishing Tradition

by Gary Dauphin
based on the video "Anything I Catch...The Handfishing Story" by Pat Mire

"You feel your way around. A catfish is smooth, a carp is scaly, and if it is a turtle you can feel it. If its a snake, you go on to the next hole!" That is how someone describes the Cajun tradition of handfishing, when asked, "How can you stand to feel around in the bayou when you can't see in the dark water?"

Cajuns have a long standing tradition of handfishing: wading the bayou waters and grabbing fish and turtles with their bare hands. The handfisherman feel around under stumps and in holes in the banks, reaching for any creatures that live there. Once they find something, they block up the hole, feel the fish to determine what it is, and then grab it and haul it to the bank. But, these fisherman must watch out for the head of their prey, because if you stick your hand in the mouth of a turtle or a catfish, the animal can really do some damage to your hand.

Handfishing has traditionally been a relaxing, fun, social event for Cajun families. Sometimes the whole family would go to get away from chores and daily worries. Friends and family members would tell stories, the children would play, and the adults played Cajun music and ate food. Sometimes two or three large families would get together, forming a crowd of 30 or 40 people, and cook the day's catch right there on the bank. Meanwhile, the handfishermen would be diving underwater, looking for a big catch. A big catfish could pull the fisherman around in the bayou, so sometimes two men are used for the big ones.

"Cajuns learned handfishing in Louisiana, they did not learn it in Nova Scotia," according to Dr. Carl Brasseaux. "This is new technology appearing in the prairie Cajun country, borrowed from local Indians." Bel Abbey of the Coushatta Indian Tribe of Louisiana mentioned that "we [Coushatta Indians] don't even know how far back our old people have been handfishing."

But, this tradition is being lost. As with the Cajun language, the tradition is not being passed on through the generations. "Close integration with the environment like this is no longer common in this country," says Ray Brassieur of the University of Missouri Columbia.

"We got away from handfishing because we were embarrassed, and we never taught our children to handfish," according to one handfisherman. However, some families are trying to rejuvenate the tradition.

Sadly, environmental damage to the bayous may end the handfishing tradition. Logging practices in 1960s, and subsequent dredging of the bayou to keep the top soil out of the bayous, ruined the water quality and the quality of the backwater areas. "Now we have to find bayous that haven't been ruined by drainage. Dredging has ruined the natural ecology for our fish," according to Cajun researcher Dr. Barry Ancelet. One fisherman interviewed in the video explained that "the bayou water used to be so clear, you could drink it. It wasn't muddy like it is today. Now we have salt water mixed in, and sometimes a little crude oil."

This tape explains handfishing, and details why the tradition has been dying. In the film, Pat and his father Felix Mire, try handfishing themselves. They also talk with other Cajun, Indian, and Creole handfishermen, who discuss how they handfish and why we should keep the tradition alive.

"Anything I Catch...The Handfishing Story" is an excellent video with good Cajun music, and is recommended viewing for anyone one interested in studying Cajun traditions.

Other Cajun films by Pat Mire include:

Dance for a Chicken: The Cajun Mardi Gras $25 + s/h

This award-winning film brims over with stunning images of carnival play and a rich soundtrack of hot Cajun music. Cajun filmmaker Pat Mire gives us an entertaining , inside look at the colorful and exotic rural Cajun Mardi Gras. Every year before the Lenton seasons begins, processions of masked and costumed revelers, often on horseback, go from house to house gathering ingredients for communal gumbos in communities across rural southwest Louisiana. The unruly participants in this ancient tradition play as beggars, fools, and thieves as they raid farmsteads and perform in exchange for charity or, in other words, "dance for a chicken."

"Anything I Catch..." The Handfishing Story $20 + s/h

Folklife researcher Pat Mire teams up with veteren filmmaker and cinematographer Charles Bush to beautifully capture the natural drama of handfishing in this award-winning cultural documentary. This highly visual program examines the thrilling regional phenomenon of Cajuns who wade in murky bayou waters to catch huge catfish and turtles by reaching into hollow logs and stumps with their bare hands. Friends and family accompany the handfishermanto the bayou banks for festive cooking, storytelling, Cajun music, and to witness this increasingly rare tradition. Told from the inside with multiple voices, Mire and Bush explore the chain of events set off by man's attempt to "improve" his environment by dredging bayous in this remarkable study of the relationship between cultural and natural resources. Sadly, man's abuse of the bayous had unforeseen cultural impact and has virtually eliminated this vestige of the traditional folk community which served to bind families and neighbors together.

Wildflowers of the Cajun Prairie

Beautiful wildflowers and grasses, some reaching shoulder height, once covered the southwest Louisiana prairie attracting a multitude of butterflies. Fragments of this natural prarie habitat are found in remnant strips along railroad right-of-ways that have never been cultivated. Wildflowers of the Cajun Prairie features the study and restoration efforts of the native southwest Louisiana prairie wildflower habitat.

All Pat Mire videos can be purchased from Attakapas Productions, PO Box 821, Eunice, La. 70535 (318) 457-8214 ]