Return to Yakni Chitto
Description
Hundreds of years ago, Terrebonne Parish was known to Indigenous peoples as "Yakni Chitto," which means "Big Country." Located between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya, Monique's father's parents were born along Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes into a small Houma community. Migrating to Lower St. Bernard Parish each winter to trap, they eventually bought land along Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs. Monique spent a large part of her childhood with her grandmother, Armantine Marie Billiot Verdin, and in the 1990s began to document their family's deep connection to South Louisiana in black and white photographs. As she writes in the book, "I've been trying to make sense of the strange beauty left here—the magic that is entangled in the ugliest underbelly of a plantation economy surrendered to the petro-chemical industry." In conversation with writers, family members, and theatre-makers, Monique shares how multiracial collectives in South Louisiana have come together to honor and protect their homes and work towards a shared future.
Author Bio
Monique Michelle Verdin is a native daughter of southeast Louisiana. Her intimate documentation of the Mississippi River Deltas' indigenous Houma nation exposes the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate and change. Her photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, Yale University Press (2008) and Nonesuch Records' Habitat for Humanity benefit album Our New Orleans (2005).
Rachel Breunlin is director of the Neighborhood Story Project. She is currently the ethnographer-in-residence in the Anthropology Department at the University of New Orleans where she teaches courses on public culture and collaborative ethnography.
