Le Pont du Nez Piqué

The bayou—a place of fertility and of tragedy, a place of stories

The Bayou Nezpique, photographed in the place where Aubrey LaHaye’s body was found in 1983. Photo by Olivia Perillo.

Just east of Jennings, spilling out of Lake Arthur, the four daughters of the Mermentau River rebelliously split from their source, never to return. Of the four, the Nezpique (Nip-ee-kay) leans farthest west, passing through Vermillion Parish and right under I-10. From there she finds purpose—shaping the territories and communities of the state—becoming the border between Jefferson Davis Parish and Acadia, then eventually tracing out the line between Allen and Evangeline. Cutting right through Evangeline Parish’s quiet, rural highways, the river splits right above LA 376, birthing the Nezpique East and the Nezpique West. Follow the East Fork as it winds through the prairies between Oakdale and Mamou, wander with it down Chapman Lane, cross Ambrose Road and the LA 13 highway. Should you meander with it around the back end of Mike Fontenot’s Braford Farms, and cross underneath Heritage Road, across the cattle fields, there you’ll find my childhood home.

But if you turn back to the southwest, following the bayou around Mamou, towards Duralde, past the miles and miles of crawfish farms and rice fields, the rural cemeteries and the backroads, you’ll find yourself upon on a bridge. Here, where the Nezpique crosses BJ Manuel Lane, is where the young Vezinat family on January 16, 1983 found Aubrey LaHaye’s body, bringing an end to ten days of search parties and prayers for a miracle.

Long before even that, though, the Bayou Nezpique meant something to my family. It ran beside the homestead of my great great grandfather Marcellus Deshotels, a sharecropper farming in L’Anse Grise—his crops fed by the fertile soils around the Nezpique. In the evenings, he’d famously end the hard work day telling stories and singing songs to his seven children, including my great grandmother Emily Deshotels—who would later marry Aubrey LaHaye, and lose him to that bayou.

One such story was a tale of the Nezpique, and of the bridge that crosses it. The story is preserved in a telling, in French, by my MawMaw Emily’s brother Ed Deshotels in Barry Jean Ancelet’s 1994 collection of Cajun and Creole folktales. The story is called “Le pont du Nez Piqué”. I have provided the French and English translations below.

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Beaucoup des années passées, depuis les Cadiens est ici, il ya un bayou, et le nom du bayou, c’est le bayou Nez Piqué, et c’est un nom sauvage, et ça a jamais été connu qui c’est le nom même, le nom Nez Piqué, qui c’est qu’il veut dire, le meaning du mot Nez Piqué. Et il y a personne qu’avait jamais connu comment le pont du Nez Piqué, il avait été fait.

Alors, un jour, le monde s’a aperçu qu’alentours du pont Nez Piqué, il y avait des choses drôle qu’arrivaient. Les bêtes qu’allaient pour manger, elles auront disparu. Ça revenait pas chez eux-autres. Et le pont était assez large, dans ces temps-là, il y avait juste des wagons et des bogheis et ça, et le monde croisait. Ils auront croisé le pont pour aller l’autre bord, visiter, quelque chose. Là, quand ça revenait, ils s’auront croisés sur le pont. Alors, ils auront été, arrêté les wagons et puis le monde visitait.

Alors, un jour il ya un homme et son petit garçon, son fils, a été, et le petit s’a assis dessus le pont pour pêcher. Alors, il a dit à son papa, “Pap, le pont est après souffler!”

Alors, ils ont étudié ça un bout de temps, et puis c’est venu bien sérieux qu’ils ont compris qu’il y avait quelque chose de drôle. Alors, ils ont appelé les connaisseurs, les professeurs, et le monde qu’avaient étudié. Et ils sont venus. Ils on trouvé que c’était quelque chose qu’était en vie.

Alors, ils ont fouillé, jusqu’à ils ont aperçu que c’était un cocodril. Il avait la tête enterré dessus un bord, et il avait la queue pliée dans l’autre écore, l’autre bord. Et le soir, il sortait de là, et il prendait le bayou et il mangeait les bêtes. Là, sur l’avant-jour, il venait. Il se replaçait et le monde croisait.

Alors, quand ils ont trouvé pour ça, ils ont appelé larmée. Et ils sont venus avec un canon. Ils l’ont tiré dix coups, dix coups de canon pour le tuer. Et c’est dit que, quand ils l’ont ôté, que le bayou a baissé trois pieds-là, à force il était gros.

Alors là, ils ont appelé tout le monde et puis ils l’ont séparé. Et il a donné cinquante barils de graisse. Et l’armée a pris la viande, et il y en a eu pour une année, avec cette viande de ce cocodril-là. Et ils ont vendu la peau à des factories qui faisaient des souliers. Ils ont fait cinquante paires de souliers et des bottes en quantité.

Et asteur, ayoù le pont du Nez Piqué, ayoù il était, asteur, c’est un pont cimenté, ils ont. Et le monde qui passe s’arrête souvent pour un bout de temps parce que, pour ceux qui veut pas le croire, ils ont publié, ils ont mis une grosse plaque et l’histoire du premier pont du Nez Piqué est là pour eux autres lire.

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Listen to Ed Deshotels tell the story in this recording from Ancelet’s field work, provided by the Center for Louisiana Studies Cajun & Creole Folklore archives. Listen to the end, and hear my Great Great Uncle Ed sing the story en chanson.

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The Bayou Nezpique as it appears near my childhood home between Pine Prairie and Vidrine. Photo by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot.

Many years ago, before the Cajuns were here, there was a bayou, and the name of the bayou was the Nez Piqué, and it is an Indian name, and it was never known what the name itself, the name Nez Piqué, what it means, the meaning of the words Nez Piqué.¹And no one knew how the bridge across the Nez Piqué had been built.

But one day, people noticed that around the Nez Piqué bridge, strange things were happening. Cows that went there to eat would disappear. They never would come home. And the bridge was so wide, in those days, when there were only wagons and buggies, the people could meet while crossing the bridge. They would cross the bridge to go to the other side to visit, or something. Then, when they would come back, they would meet on the bridge. So they would stop the wagons and teh people would visit.

So one day, there was a man and his little boy, his son, who went and the little one sat on the bridge to fish. So, he said to his father, “Pop, the bridge is breathing.”

So they studied this for a while, and it got very serious and they realized that there was something funny. So they called in people who knew, professors and other people who had studied this sort of thing. They found that it was alive.

So they dug, until they found out that it was an alligator. It had its head buried in one side, and its tail was folded into the other side. And at night, it would leave and follow the bayou and eat the cows. Then, at daybreak, it came back. It would replace itself and the people would cross.

So when they found out about this, they called in the army. And they came with a cannon. They shot it ten times, ten cannon shots to kill it. And it is said that when they took it out, the bayou went down three feet, so big was it.

So then they called all the people and they divided it. And it produced fifty barrels of fat. And the army took the meat, and there was enough for a year, with the meat from this one alligator. And the sold the skin to factories that made shoes. And they made fifty pairs of shoes and untold numbers of boots.

And now, where the Nez Piqué bridge was, now there is a new cement bridge. And the people who pass on it often stop for a while because, for those who would not believe it, there is a big plaque and the story of the first bridge over the Nez Piqué is there for all to read.²

This folktale was republished with permission from Barry Jean Ancelet and the University Press of Mississippi. The book, Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition in South Louisiana, can be purchased at the link below:

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1. The name “Nez Piqué” is believed to have been named by French colonists for a member of the Atakapa-Ishak tribe, which had a village along the bayou.

2. Deshotels, Edward. “Le pont du Nez Piqué / The Bridge Over the Nez Piqué.” By Barry Jean Ancelet. Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition in South Louisiana. Jackson, 1994. pp. 160–162.