Descendants of French-speaking Acadians who settled in south Louisiana after being deported by the British from Nova Scotia, formerly known as L’Acadie. “Cajun” is a corruption of Acadien, or Cadien, the French term that former inhabitants of L’Acadie and their descendants called themselves. The term “acadie” derives from a Micmac word rendered in French as cadie (land of plenty). Permanent settlement of Acadia began during the first decade of the 17th century, and Acadians were among the first European immigrants to develop a distinct North American identity (Brasseaux 1987:161–172). Acadian folk culture emerged as French and Native American traditions blended and adaptations to a special maritime environment were forged. Acadians were also affected by 150 years of colonial conflict between France and England. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which ceded Acadia to Britain, the Acadians became French neutrals, and Acadia was renamed Nova Scotia. Their fate was ultimately sealed when they refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to England, which would have required them to give up their Catholic religion and take up arms against their kinsmen and Indian allies. Le Grand Dérangement, the Acadian deportation from Noval Scotia, which began in 1755 and continued until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, put an end to hostilities between France and England. Between 2,500 and 3,000 exiled Acadians arrived in Louisiana between 1764 and 1803 and tried to reestablish their former society. In the 1990s, the core Cajun population resides in south Louisiana within a more or less triangular-shaped region with its apex near Alexandria. However, communities of migrant Cajuns have resettled in east Texas, California, and elsewhere in the United States. In the face of complex social, cultural, and demographic transformation, Cajuns maintain a sense of group identity and continue to display a distinctive set of cultural expressions nearly two-and-one-half centuries following their exile from Acadia. Popular and stereotypical images have long tended to skew representations of Cajun history and culture. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s popular poem Evangeline, originally published in 1847, inspired romantic depictions of Cajuns as pious, peace-loving, pastoral peasants carrying forth timeless French traditions. Louisiana writer Felix Voorhies’ Acadian Reminiscences: The True Story of Evangeline (1907), another telling of the Acadian tragedy featuring characters with believable local Cajun names, inspired local interest and ethnic pride. During the 1920s, young girls dressed in peasant maiden “Evangeline” costumes helped campaign for the establishment of a national shrine; Longfellow-Evangeline State Park was eventually established in St. Martinsville (Brasseaux 1988). Before and after the 1955 bicentennial of the Acadian exile, political leaders like Dudley LeBlanc and Roy Theriot helped advance a growing Cajun revival by reenforcing the connection between Cajun identity and the Acadian saga. Popular notions about Cajun identity thus tended to ignore the dynamic sociocultural realities of the 19th and 20th centuries. But, in retrospect, however inaccurate these representations may seem, they appear mild compared to some of the misrepresentations proliferating at the end of the 20th century as a result of the unbridled commercialization of Cajun “chic” by entrepreneurs in the food, music, entertainment, and tourism industries. In the 1900s popular culture, Cajuns seem to be alternately presented as swamp-dwelling, homicidal outcasts or as humorous, wine- and hot sauceguzzling chefs. Recent scholarship has presented more complete and balanced views of Cajun culture. Historian Carl A.Brasseaux, in The Founding of New Acadia, explores social history in early Louisiana Cajun settlements. In order to survive in Spanish Louisiana, Cajuns made great adjustments to new environmental and social factors. They learned to live in a diverse society populated by European, African, Asian, and West Indian immigrants, Louisiana Creoles, and Indians. They learned about slavery and some became slaveholders. Brasseaux’s Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803–1877 (1992) demonstrates how 19th-century changes, like those resulting in the formation of separate and distinct Cajun socioeconomic classes, affected Cajun folklife and contributed to the development of modern Cajun society. He also investigates the darker sides of Cajun violence and racism before and after the Civil War. Most misunderstandings concerning the genealogical “purity” of Louisiana AcadianCajun stock have been addressed by scholars. With regard to ancestral origin, modernday Cajuns are far from homogenous, if indeed any group of Acadians ever was. In The People Called Cajuns: An Introduction to an Ethnohistory (1983), James Dormon discusses the complex demographic history of Louisiana Cajuns and the difficulties of trying to define them in terms of Acadian ancestry. The ancestors of 18th-century Acadian immigrants to Louisiana included peoples from various parts of France, native Micmacs, some Scots, Basques, and others of assorted European ancestry. Once in Louisiana, Acadians intermarried and/or mixed with neighboring Native Americans, foreign immigrants, and native Louisiana-born people of German, French, Spanish, African, Asian, and other origins. Living side by side with families named Thibodeaux, Breaux, and Hebert are Cajuns named Abshire, McGee, Reed, Walker, Brown, Rodriguez, and Schexnayder. Neither does Cajun material culture represent, to any significant degree, the diffusion and survival of forms from ancient L’Acadie. For example, Acadians arriving in Louisiana borrowed from existing folk architectural patterns, innovating and expanding as needed (Ancelet, Edwards, and Pitre 1991; Edwards 1986). After several generations, their raised houses, with full incised galleries, were practically identical to other Creole houses of Louisiana much different from those in their pre-expulsion villages. Malcolm Comeaux has identified and described the typical Louisiana Cajun barn (hangar) (Comeaux 1989). Its features do not resemble maritime Acadian or French barns. Comeaux postulates that the Cajun barn, with its characteristic square floor plan and identifying incised and enclosed gable-front entrance, was borrowed from neighboring German farmers who were already established along the Mississippi River before the Acadians arrived in Louisiana. Acadians certainly brought boatbuilding skills from their maritime homeland, but Louisiana Cajun watercraft bear few resemblances to those of Nova Scotia. In the case of the sailing lugger, the most common Louisiana fishing boat used by coastal Cajuns throughout the 19th century, the sailing rig may have remained constant, but the shape and construction of the hull, the internal arrangement of space, and the entire superstructure evolved with input from Italian, Dalmatian, and Canary Island fishermen into a form distinctive to the northern Gulf Coast (Brassieur 1990). Many elements of Cajun expressive culture can best be understood in terms of creolization, the dynamic process of cultural blending that occurs when diverse populations interact. Cajun foodways certainly represent a blend. The ideas, if not the specific recipes or ingredients, for stews and sauces thickened with roux, seafood courtboullion, ettouffé, boudin, andouille, chaudin (stuffed pork stomach), crêpes, beignets, and other Cajun culinary items were transplanted to Louisiana from France and Acadia. Corn dishes like macquechoux (stewed fresh corn), sagamité (hominy-grits) and couche-couche (skillet-fried cornmeal), filé (ground sassafras leaves), tasso (dried or smoked meat), along with dishes prepared from native fish and game, fruits, and vegetables, all represent contributions to Cajun cuisine from Native Americans. Gumbo and jambalaya are African in origin. Okra (called gumbo févi in Cajun French) was imported from western Afirica, where it is called guingombo. Cayenne and other hot peppers, native to the Americas, represent Spanish and Afro-Caribbean influences. The Cajun preference for rice as a staple began to develop toward the end of the 19th century. The widespread consumption of crawfish, an activity now popularly linked with Cajun identity, is a relatively new trend in Cajun cuisine (Comeaux 1972). Cajuns are perhaps best known by their music and, like most other features of Cajun culture, it, too, represents a dynamic blending of diverse elements. Barry Jean Ancelet characterizes Cajun music as “a blend of German, Spanish, Scottish, Irish, Anglo American, Afro-Caribbean, and American Indian influences with a base of western French and French Acadian folk tradition” (Ancelet 1989:1). Unaccompanied French folksongs and ballads, as well as instrumental dance music, came to Louisiana from France, either through Acadia, by way of other parts of French America, or more direcdy from the European continent. These older forms blended with rhythmic and percussive elements, syncopation and singing styles brought to Louisiana from Africa, Anglo American folk music and song traditions, and popular European and American musical trends to influence the development of Cajun music. Changes in instrumentation, beginning with the introduction of the diatonic accordion, and later the steel guitar, electric guitar and bass, and full drum set transformed Cajun music during the 20th century. The musical duets of White fiddler Dennis McGee and Black accordionist Amadé Ardoin, recorded in the late 1920s to 1930s, characterize the metamorphosis then occurring in Cajun dance music. A strong Americanizing trend, reflected in Cajun music by an increasing use of English lyrics and by the strong influence of nationally popular country string-band music, like that produced by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, typified the 1930s and 1940s. In place of the accordion, the steel guitar, electric guitar and bass, and full trap drum set joined the violin to became preferred instruments. However, a renewal of older musical forms featuring accordion and French lyrics began during the late 1940s and was aroused, according to Ancelet, by the need among returning World War II veterans to hear homemade music (Ancelet 1989). Iry Lejeune, a young accordionist from Point Noir, led the vanguard of excellent bandleader-accordionists that included Lawrence Walker, Nathan Abshire, Aldus Roger, and Austin Pitre. During the 1960s, with the rising popularity of rock and roll and rhythm and blues, and with the subsequent reinvasion of this music from England by groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Cajun music increasingly became the music of the older generations. The work of folklorists, music producers, and musicians from both inside and outside Cajun culture reversed this trend. In 1964 traditional Cajun musicians Gladius Thibodeaux,Vinesse Lejeune, and Dewey Balfa performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where they awakened the world to the excitement of Cajun music. Balfa became an effective spokesperson, and the recordings he made with his brothers and other musicians serve as models to aspiring young Cajun artists. In 1974 the first Tribute to Cajun Music Festival was held in Lafayette; this festival continues to provide the opportunity to honor older heroes and a stage where younger musicians are brought to light. The phenomenal international, national, and local successes of Zachary Richard, Michael Doucet and Beausoleil, WayneToups, Bruce Daigrepont, Steve Riley, and many other younger musicians and groups has propelled Cajun music into widespread popularity. The amazing and unprecedented rise in popularity of Cajun music during the 1980s, both inside and outside of the culture, appears to carry forth with no abatement, and another generation of young virtuoso performers is proudly taking its place on the bandstand. Mardi Gras (literally “Fat Tuesday,” also known as Shrove Tuesday) is another element of Louisiana folk culture that has profited along with the growing Cajun cultural revitalization. Mardi Gras is tied to ancient folk Catholic (and earlier pre-Christian) annual ritual cycles and shares features with other New World French questing rituals such as La Chandeleur, practiced in the French Canadian Maritimes; La Guillonnée, practiced in Missouri and Illinois; and various Carnival fêtes of the Caribbean. Features shared by these “begging quests” include disguise, suspension (or inversion) of ordinary rules of behavior, a traditional chant or song, rewards for performance, a leader and a band of followers, a round of house-to-house visits, at least the threat of pranks, and ritual “begging.” Beyond these basic similarities, the Mardi Gras ritual of each Cajun community in Louisiana has its own distinguishing features with regard to song texts, traditional role-playing, costumes, specific rules for participation, and modes of transportation (Ancelet, Edwards, and Pitre 1991). Although, like Cajun music, Mardi Gras is growing in popularity both within and without the culture, it is much more than a popular tourist attraction. From pre-event preparation to concluding communal gumbo, Mardi Gras continues to promote Cajun community cohesion and ethnic pride. Cajun storytelling, particularly that performed in Cajun French, represents a vital aspect of cultural expression that has not received popular recognition on the same level with Cajun music or food, since it is inaccessible to most American audiences. In Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana (1994), Ancelet provides an excellent compilation of Cajun oral material diat renders Louisiana dialects legible to readers of standard French and also provides English translations. Ancelet sorts his collection into animal tales, magic tales, jokes, lies and tall tales, Pascal stories, legendary tales, and historical tales; he pays particular attention to the context and language of events, as well as the repertoires and life stories of the storytellers. By presenting material firom White Cajuns and Black Creoles together in one volume, Ancelet reminds us of the inextricable blend of expressive forms that make up Louisiana French life and lore. Another advantage of Ancelet’s work emerges from the extensive comparative notes provided for each piece. Through these annotations, the reader is connected with the work of earlier collectors and their collections of French material from Louisiana and elsewhere in the French-speaking world. In spite of the overwhelming Cajun cultural revitalization that has been unfolding during the past few decades, questions concerning cultural continuity revolve around language retention. The oral French language spoken by Cajuns, which includes a range of distinctive local variation, was dominant in many communities in south Louisiana at the turn of the 20th century. The Progressive Era policies of the Theodore Roosevelt presidency, particularly those that established mandatory English-language education throughout the United States, severely altered this situation. Cajun children were punished for speaking French on the school grounds, and Cajuns who spoke no English, or those who spoke with a heavy accent, were often ridiculed and held as the butt of jokes. The powerful stigma that developed among native speakers of Cajun French prohibited many parents from teaching French to their offspring. In 1968 the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) was established to help salvage a dying language. Its activities, particularly with regard to the promotion of Cajun music, contributed to the cultural revitalization, but the fate of Louisiana French language is far from secure. Within the last several years, a few south Louisiana parish school systems have initiated French-language-immersion curriculums for elementary schoolchildren. This approach has attained local popularity and success, but in the 1990s it is not widely available to Cajun children. In the meantime, while Cajun pride swells in many aspects of life, spoken French is becoming increasingly rare among Cajuns under forty years of age. Since the late 18th century, Acadians and their descendants have adapted to new environmental conditions, adopted many American, European, Native American, African and Asian cultural traditions, and made innovations when necessary and desirable. Late20th-century Cajun culture is certainly distinct, but it is also dynamic and difficult to define. Perhaps Cajuns are best characterized by their amazing adaptability to change, combined with a lively capacity to reinterpret and reshape cultural expressions to suit their own purposes, principles, and preferences.