American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected hundreds of thousands in southern Louisiana. To say that they touched people of every stripe and color dramatically is a gross understatement. Aside from the horrendous loss of life and property damage, families were uprooted, traditions disrupted, and one of the largest migrations in American history forced on a state with traditionally the lowest outmigration rate. Still, as hurricane survivors know, a large difference separates standing battered versus lying destroyed. What Katrina and, more significantly, Rita dealt the United Houma Nation and other tribes of southeastern Louisiana was a harsh strike but not a death blow. On the contrary, Katrina and Rita were only the last in a series of hurricanes that have shaped Indian settlement and culture. Through all those storms the Houmas have persevered, helped each other, and used tempests to reaffirm who they are. This article will examine several hurricanes and how they affected Houma history and culture. Though the Houma lived among highland bluffs when they first met the French in 1699, within seven years they had relocated down the Mississippi and to the Bayou St. John area just outside New Orleans. A few years later they moved back upstream to the area known in colonial times as Upper Lafourche, near modern Donaldsonville, Louisiana. There the Houma provided foodstuffs to La Nouvelle-Orléans and also buffered the settlement against hostile tribes and the English. Houma political power waned dramatically during the Spanish colonial era as increasing numbers of Germans, Acadians, and Canary Islanders (Isleños) settled along the river. Not only did these groups supplant the Houma as food producers and soldiers, but also increasing conflict with settlers convinced elders that the best route to survival was to relocate down bayous into Lafourche Interior and into modern Lafourche, Terrebonne, and St. Mary parishes.